The Curse
by demonrubberducky
Summary: Challenge Fic: Kakashi notices that Iruka never seems to date anyone, and decides to find out why. Are Iruka's relationships really cursed like the sensei believes? And more importantly, will Kakashi be able to break that curse?
1. Chapter 1

This fic is a response to a challenge by IcySapphire to write a KakaIru about repression. So, here goes!

The Curse(if anyone can help me think of a better title, you'll get a pat on the head and an invisible imaginary Kakashi plushie. I suck at titles.)

Prologue:

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"I hate couples!" Hatake Kakashi, jounin ninja of the Hidden Village of Konoha proclaimed as he flopped down on the grass on the training field. A second later, his friend and eternal rival Maito Gai sprawled out beside him. Both had been entangled in a fierce competition of horseshoe tossing before they had been interrupted.

"Look at them!" Kakashi ranted on, pointing at Kurenai and Asuma. The pair was ambling along, hand in hand, looking dreamily into each others' eyes. "It's sickening."

"They _are_ in the Springtime of their Youth, oh Hip and Modern Rival." Gai replied, wanting to end the rambling and get back to the tossing of equine accessories (if the Beautiful Blue Beast won this round, he would pull ahead in the win/loss count!)

"It's not _just_ them, though. Earlier this morning it was Genma and Raido." Kakashi pointed out. While the two bachelor jounin had been setting up for horseshoes, they had seen the two lovers in the middle of a spat. Genma had run past first, dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts, followed by a wet and angry Raido-in-a-towel, who was shouting something about not flushing the toilette while the shower was in use.

"Those two have always been trouble, even before they were together. Their boundless energy should be Inspiration, not Exasperation, Kakashi." Gai said sagely.

"And what about that fiasco with Jiraiya, Tsunade, and the whipped cream last week?" Kakashi asked.Gai didn't reply to that one, not even wanting to recall the experience.

"Everywhere we go, Gai, there are couples, holding hands, making eyes at each other, kissing, fighting, making up! I'm sick of it!" Kakashi shouted.

Gai narrowed his round eyes in concentration. It wasn't like his rival at all to complain so much and to be so distraught over sappy romance (wasn't that what he read those novels for? Certainly his esteemed rival was too noble to read them purely for the sex…). "What's really the problem, Kakashi?" He asked, schooling his handsome, sparklingly heroic face into a no-nonsense stare, to show the Copy nin he wasn't fooled by the pretence.

"I told you." Kakashi huffed. Gai continued with the stare.

"Fine." Kakashi said finally, after a full three minutes of Gai's look. "It just seems like everyone has someone else except for us two."

"That's not true, my eternal rival! There are plenty of single ninja in the village!" Gai proclaimed. "I'll show you!" Konoha's Blue Beast grabbed the Copy ninja by his wrist and dragged the poor man back to the village.

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An hour later, Kakashi and Gai stopped at a bar to get some sake. They had found no less that forty-two couples, and not a single single ninjaunder the age of fifty orolder than twelve. Kakashi didn't care that it was only noon; he needed a drink to make the depression go away.

"We'll find someone after this drink," Gai promised, "or else I'll throw three hundred kunai at practice this afternoon."

"Give up, Gai." Kakashi growled. "Everyone in the village has someone else. We are the only two men that are alone."

Gai refused to give up, though. He was a genius of hard work, a prince of perseverance, a dauntless beacon of determination.

"What about the girl at the ramen stand?" He asked. "Is she going out with anyone?"

"Engaged to Dumpling guy."

"What about that ninja right there?" Gai asked, pointing to a random shinobi he didn't know that was wondering around on the street.

"With that civilian right there." Kakashi answered, pointing to the girl walking up behind him. Sure enough, the two embraced lovingly, never knowing or caring that they were being watched.

Gai looked around on the street in front of the bar, desperate to find some lonely person to console his rival with (he was starting to get a little depressed himself, too).

It was as if, at that moment, a dark cloud moved away and rays of sunshine shone down. Umino Iruka stumbled past the bar, struggling with armfuls of students' papers and teaching supplies.

"Umino Iruka." Gai almost sang as he said the name. Kakashi glanced up from his sake glass with a confused look in his eye.

"Huh?"

"Umino Iruka." Gai repeated, proud of his discovery.

"That chuunin school teacher? He can't be single. He's probably got some sweet civilian girlfriend who makes him dinner and bakes cookies for his class and all that crap." Kakashi guessed, taking another sip of his sake.

"I've never seen or heard mention of a girlfriend, and I have spoken to him a few times. He's the teacher of my beloved students." Gai told his rival.

Kakashi set down his sake and thought to himself. He didn't know much about the chuunin, other than he taught at the academy, Naruto worshiped him, and he was easy to rile up. The sensei had come across to him as the type to have some nice, sweet girlfriend, though.

Kakashi got up from the bar and threw some money down on the table to cover his drink.

"Where are you going?" Gai asked him as he turned to exit.

"I'm going to prove that Umino Iruka isn't single. Then you'll have to admit that I'm right." Kakashi said. He left the bar without a backward glance at his jounin friend.

"But what about the horseshoe competition?" Gai wondered aloud. Well, there went his change to pull ahead in the ongoing contest between himself and his rival. Gai chugged his sake and ordered another bottle.

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Sorry for the shortness, but I have graduation tomorrow, AMA the next day, and then my senior trip to Florida (boo-yah!), so the updates for this fic are going to be few and far between for a while. I'll try to work on this as much as I can in my spare time before I leave on my trip, but I'm not making any promises.


	2. Chapter 2

The Curse

Chapter 1

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Kakashi had been tailing Iruka off and on for two days and had yet to see any sign of a girlfriend. The sensei went to bed in an empty futon and awoke alone. He went around his daily routine happily, without any trace of loneliness, but never getting closer than friend or teacher to anyone. The chuunin had poker night on Wednesdays with his little chuunin friends, but he never bragged to them about his romantic exploits and had no one to scold him when he came home, late and a little bit tipsy.

It was beginning to look distressingly like Gai was right and Kakashi was wrong. Kakashi couldn't let that happen! It would throw the aura of the whole village off (not to mention leave Gai with a very long 'I told you so' speech).

There was only one logical solution, of course. Well, Kakashi could actually think of three, but the other two involved some forbidden jutsu, a load of money in small, unmarked bills, and the help of this shady guy Kakashi had met in a dark alley in the slums of Suna. Kakashi didn't want to resort to those solutions, though, so Plan Number One it would be. The Copy Ninja would set Iruka up without someone, thus proving to Maito Gai that everyone in Konoha was part of some sickening sweet couple.

Not that Kakashi cared what Gai thought or anything, and certainly not because Kakashi was freakishly competitive and didn't want Gai to win one of their challenges (he certainly didn't know that the current score was a 522 tie, and one loss would put Gai in the lead). No, Kakashi was just a caring sort of shinobi that didn't want the chuunin sensei that he didn't know well to lead a life of loneliness and sorrow. That was his story, and he was sticking to it.

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Kakashi wasn't exactly a genius when it came to romance ("More of a lost cause than Orochimaru would be working at a daycare!" His friends would have remarked, if they had been listening rather than making sappy eyes at each other), but he figured matchmaking couldn't be too hard. According to his extensive research (Icha Icha volumes one through thirty-three, as well as the four special editions), all he needed to do was kidnap Iruka, put him in a room with a busty and beautiful heroine who would immediately fall head over heels after the chuunin gave her a intense look, and then the clothes would start flying. After a few scenes of sex, they would be firmly in love and go on to live happily ever after, and then Kakashi would be right!

Kakashi giggled over his master plan for a few moments before he started scouting around for an appropriate woman for Iruka. It wouldn't be hard; there were ninja and civilian throwing themselves at the brunet all through the day, although Iruka acted like he didn't even notice (which was a shame, Kakashi had to admit, because Iruka was damn sexy when he blushed).

With the help of his sharingan, the jounin located a dozen women that fit the Icha Icha heroine profile. The down side was, most of them already had boyfriends, and the last one had a questionable medical history. Kakashi decided none of those would work; while the Copy Nin might not feel any remorse about sleeping with someone in a relationship, he had a feeling the school teacher had a little more decency. Well, Iruka was just going to have to settle for someone a little less busty or a little less beautiful.

An hour later, Kakashi had rejected every woman in the village for one reason or another. Most had significant others already, or had psychotic families. Some were workaholics and were never in the village for more than a day at a time. Shizune had come close to passing Kakashi's standards for Iruka, but had been eliminated because of her close proximity to the Hokage. There was no way that sweet girl hadn't been corrupted by that old hag.

By dinner time, Kakashi was getting desperate. If he couldn't find a good match, a mediocre one would have to do. He resolved that the next woman he saw was going to get locked up with Iruka whether she liked it or not.

Anko walked around the corner and into his sight, happily munching on her usual dango. She waved at Kakashi from across the street. Kakashi groaned.

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Iruka was working diligently in the mission room. He stayed behind after everyone else left for dinner break, trying to get caught up on his filing. If he could finish up early, Iruka could go find Naruto and treat him to some ramen, a bank braking practice, but fun nonetheless.

Unfortunately, it was hard to file when someone switches the lights out. One minute Iruka was putting 'Gross Cost of Damage to Village' behind 'Gambling Debts, Tsunade' and the next he was sitting in darkness. The door was thrust open, something was tossed in with a thud, and then the door was slammed shut. Iruka heard the lock click shut with a sinking heart.

"Oof!" the thing that had been tossed into the room said.

"Huh?" Iruka responded ever so articulately.

"Oh, that bastard! I'm gonna kill him and feed his body to the snakes!" The thing hissed.

"Is…is that you, Anko-san?" Iruka asked. Oh, great. Just what he needed. He was locked in the room with a crazed, pissed off jounin.

"Oh, hey Iruka-kun! How have you been lately?" Anko asked pleasantly (Iruka remembered from their shared academy days that Anko could switch moods faster than Tsunade lost money). He watched as her shadowy form got up from the floor and began feeling around the door for a way out.

"I've been fine. What exactly are you doing here, Anko-san?" Anko removed some tools from her weapons kit; Iruka couldn't see in the darkness, but he could guess what they were: a lock picking set.

"No need to be so formal, Iruka-kun. We're old friends." Anko told him, working at the lock. "And I would like to know why I'm here too. We'll just have to ask Kakashi-kun, won't we?"

Kakashi? What did Kakashi have to do with this?

Anko jiggled the doorknob, twisted the lock pick once more, and the door swung open. The kunoichi latched onto Iruka's wrist and dragged him through the door frame.

"Come on, Iruka-kun. You can finish the paperwork later. We've got a copy nin to find!"

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Kakashi sat on a stool in a bar, wondering how long one customarily waited before checking to see if one's matchmaking had been fruitful. It seemed wrong to spy, but he was curious to see what was going on.

'One more chapter,' he decided, 'then I'll go check'. He buried his nose into his book (which entertained and shielded his face as he sipped his sake, a true indicator of Jiraiya's ultimate genius).

"KAKASHI!" A voice screeched. Okay then, Kakashi wouldn't need to check- Anko was here. Had they finished up so quickly?

"Kakashi, what the hell were you trying to pull back there, huh?" Anko yelled, bursting into the bar with Iruka in tow. That was a good sign, how she grasped his wrist so protectively (although, Iruka was wincing, so that might have been a death grip to make sure he didn't escape), but she didn't seem happy enough to have just gotten laid…

"I guess the Icha Icha approach didn't work, then?" He asked sheepishly, closing his one eye and scratching the back of his head with one gloved hand.

Anko's eyes widened as she figured out what Kakashi had been trying to do. "Oh my god, you pervert! That would be so, so wrong!" She gestured wildly, dragging Iruka left and right. The poor chuunin looked confused and miserable. Anko finally realized that she was still attached to the sensei and turned him loose.

"Wait here, Iruka-kun." She ordered, grabbing Kakashi in his place. "I've got to have a talk with Kakashi-kun here." Kakashi was bodily dragged from the bar and to the alleyway behind it. Anko scared away the drunk that was puking there with a single glare.

"Tell me what's going on." Anko commanded. Kakashi bravely stood his ground. He was a jounin, trained to withstand all kinds of torture without betraying his secrets. He would never tell his plan to the enemy!

"If you don't start talking, I'm going to have to seduce you for the information!" Anko threatened. She pressed her body against Kakashi's and dragged her tongue up his masked cheek.

"I'll talk!" Kakashi yelped, shoving her away. Anything, anything to keep that crazed snake-woman out of his three-foot bubble.

He told her about his conversation with Gai, his plan to set Iruka up, and his execution of Plan Icha Icha (now deemed a failure). Anko stared hard at him.

"Listen up, Kakashi. There's a reason Iruka doesn't have a girlfriend. He's had a bad history and he doesn't want to be with anyone now. Just give up before you hurt somebody." She said.

"What happened to him?" Kakashi asked, mildly concerned for the chuunin and completely curious.

"It's not my place to tell you Iruka's personal matters. If you really want to know, you'll have to find out from him." Anko said, finally releasing him. "See ya later!" She shouted, disappearing with a jutsu, just to be flashy.

'A bad past, huh?' That would just have to be overcome, then. Kakashi would set Iruka up with someone no matter what!

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Iruka sat around the bar for a few minutes, waiting for Anko to come back or Kakashi to pop up and explain things. While he was sitting there, five different people offered to buy him drinks, which he declined. People in Konoha were always so friendly!

After he'd been waiting for twenty minutes, Iruka left the bar. He swung by the mission room to pick up his papers and went home to grade.

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After his conversation with Anko, Kakashi noticed something new about the sensei he had been monitoring. Iruka never checked anyone out. He didn't masturbate. He didn't respond to any of the sexual innuendo that the rest of the mission room staff directed at him. He didn't even look at the covers of adult magazines when he passed them. It was like the man didn't have a sex drive at all!

'The key to the mystery of Iruka's missing sex drive must lie in his past. What could have happened that would cause him to repress himself so completely?' Kakashi asked himself.

It was time for more research. The first thing to do would be to find out when Iruka's last relationship had ended. Kakashi hopped roofs and trees to Genma and Raido's house. Genma the gossip-whore knew everything there was to know as far as secrets in the village went, and if he didn't know, he'd certainly find out. The fact that the two jounin would probably do lovey-dovey couple stuff in front of him didn't bother him anymore. Kakashi was on a mission, and he wouldn't rest until it was complete!

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That's all for today, folks! Thank you for reviewing the last chapter and for the congratulations for graduation (if that makes sense?). I wasn't sure that anyone read my author notes, but I guess you do.

Next chapter: Kakashi starts interrogating Iruka's past flames and turns up…THE CURSE!


	3. Chapter 3

The Curse

Chapter 2

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"Umino Iruka? Why do you want to know about him?" Raido asked incredulously at Kakashi's inquiry.

"Tryin' to get a slab of that sexy sensei?" Genma chuckled in his annoying, knowing tone. "I haven't heard his name in the gossip circle for a long time, but I'll look into it for you. Anything for a friend."

"Of course, if you're just looking to relieve a little tension, Genma and I would be happy to help a friend." Raido offered. Genma nodded rigorously.

Kakashi felt a disturbed shiver run down his spine as the two began to give him flirting glances with a few dirty gestures thrown in for good measure.

"I've got to go. A black cat crossed my path on the way over, and I have to bathe in garlic or the vampires will gnaw off my tongue in my sleep." With that rock-solid excuse, Kakashi retreated out the nearest window.

Genma and Raido looked at each other and giggled. "Is it just me, or do his excuses get crazier when he's flustered?" Genma asked.

"I think we'll have to do some more research to confirm it." Raido replied, mischief filling his voice.

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Steam rose from a ceramic mug. Iruka inhaled it and drank his coffee with relish. He let the bitter warmth flood through his body. His beloved caffeine-laced elixir filling him, Iruka let the gossiping voices of his fellow teachers drift away. Mug in hand, the teacher's lounge became his peaceful haven.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei, you sly dog!" the teacher of the second year students chuckled, elbowing Iruka sharply out of his detached daydreams. "Now I see why you didn't want to go get drinks with me yesterday!"

"Huh?" Iruka responded. What was his college talking about? The other teachers turned to look, their interest peeked.

"Gossip about Iruka-kun? Spill it!" They cried eagerly.

"Our innocent little Iruka-kun here has his sights set much higher." Second year sensei told his captivated audience. "I heard that he's got none other than the famous Hatake Kakashi, Copy Ninja of Konoha asking about him."

The teachers gasped. Some winked at him; others huffed and acted offended that Iruka hadn't told them about his plans to seduce the Copy Nin.

Iruka himself didn't know what to think. Kakashi again? Was the man trying to make him miserable? What was the jounin up to?

Iruka put his mug down and exited the lounge, ignoring the other senseis' insistence that he give them all the details. Kakashi had some explaining to do, and Iruka was going to see that the silver-haired shinobi answered all of his questions.

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While he was waiting for Genma and Raido to dredge up answers about Iruka's love life, Kakashi followed Iruka around for more research. He lost sight of the sensei for a couple of minutes when the chuunin retreated into the teacher's lounge, but his previous observation told him that all Iruka ever did in there was drink coffee and ignore everyone else anyways. Kakashi found him again when Iruka stormed out of the lounge.

The sensei stomped out on the sidewalk, did a few hand signs, and nipped his thumb for the summoning jutsu. Kakashi crept closer to see what Iruka was planning.

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The Copy Ninja was nearly impossible to find when he didn't want to be found, Iruka knew. Naruto had tried countless times to track the man down to ask for training, and had never been successful. Even though Naruto's inability to find him didn't mean it was impossible, Sasuke and Sakura had also failed, so Iruka knew his task was going to be a challenge.

Luckily, Iruka had long since perfected a fool-proof method for locating people, what with all the unruly, class-skipping students he had. He went through the summoning jutsu. A tiny nin-kitten appeared in his palm.

"Good afternoon, Neko-chan." Iruka told the kitten politely. "I need your help to locate a ninja, if you would."

The little striped tabby mewed her consent.

"I'm looking for Hatake Kakashi. He has silver hair and he'll probably smell like nin-dogs." Iruka explained. The kitten hissed at the mention of such a distasteful smell and flicked a paw just above Iruka's left shoulder.

Iruka looked around, confused at the information his summon had just given him.

"Are you sure, Neko-chan?" He asked, but she was already licking her paws with the indifference that only a cat can manage. Iruka released that chakra that held her and the kitten disappeared with a pop. He looked up in the direction that Neko-chan had indicated once again. Sure enough, there was silver in his line of sight, hidden in the branches of a tree.

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Kakashi watched with horror as Iruka's damned kitten summon pointed him out (this was why he was a dog person! Cats ruin everything!). He knew he couldn't run; he'd seen the other man in action when Naruto got in trouble, and a moving target wouldn't hinder the chuunin in the slightest. The sensei was starting straight at his hiding place now. Death was inevitable.

"Kakashi-san? Could you come down here for a moment?" Iruka asked, polite as always and deceptively calm. Kakashi hoped the man wasn't one of those quiet psychopath types. The copy ninja hopped out of his tree, whipped out his book (if he was going to die, he wanted one last read), and ambled over to Iruka as if he had casually run across him in the street instead of having been caught stalking him.

"Hello, Iruka-sensei. Imagine meeting you here." He said. Playing it infuriatingly cool worked against his other opponents (read: Gai), so he thought it was worth a shot.

"Have you been asking around about me?" Iruka growled. Kakashi, being a jounin, wasn't the least bit intimidated by Iruka's ferocity, and he certainly didn't think the man was as sexy as hell when he growled like that. No fantasies of cat-boy!Iruka danced through his head, either, just to clear up any confusion.

"Ummm…no?" Kakashi replied, using his ninja know-how to throw Iruka off his trail.

"Yes you have! And from the looks of it, you've been following me too! What's going on?" Iruka shouted, flushing red as he berated the other shinobi.

"I… well, you see, I crossed the path of a black cat this morning, so I'm going to have to go and get some garlic…" Kakashi began to creep backwards, preparing to flee from the school-teacher's wrath. Iruka wasn't about to let him off that easily, though. He tackled the jounin and pinned him to the ground before Kakashi could even explain about the vampires.

"Tell me what's going on!" The brunet ordered.

"Well, I was explaining about the black cat and then you tackled me. Now we're both on the ground, in a very compromising position." Kakashi supplied. Iruka glared.

"I want to know why you've been following me, why you were asking about me, and why you locked me in a room with Anko before. Start explaining." Iruka told him though clenched teeth.

Kakashi assessed the situation the best he could (he was pinned down by the enemy, there were no escape routes or allies to aid him, he couldn't reach any weapons, and Iruka felt warm against him and smelled faintly of strawberries). There wasn't much he could do other than comply.

"I wanted to know if you were dating anyone at the moment, Iruka-sensei." He admitted finally.

"And why did you want to know?" Iruka urged. The chuunin tightened his grip on Kakashi's wrists.

"I was curious." If the 'cooler-than-thou' technique wouldn't work, Kakashi could always rely on the vague-answer-no-jutsu to frustrate his enemy.

"About what?" Damn, Kakashi had forgotten that vague answers were useless against teachers. A curse upon them for their infernal patience and persistence!

"About why you don't have a love life." Kakashi said, hoping that would be enough information to satisfy Iruka.

"That's absurd. I have a love life!" Iruka protested.

"Genma said he hadn't heard anything, and he knows everything about every relationship within the last five years." Kakashi argued.

"Maybe I've just been discreet."

"In a village of ninja?" Kakashi asked.

"I have a love life! There's…well, there was…umm…one time, I…I…It's none of your business!" Iruka jumped up, releasing Kakashi. He looked much more upset than he should have been. Kakashi immediately regretted having pressed the issue too far.

"I'm sorry, Iruka-sensei. I shouldn't have pried." Kakashi placed a hand on the other man's shoulder in a friendly gesture of comfort (not because he missed the contact). Iruka calmed a little, but before he could speak, a nut fell from the tree above and landed with a loud _crack_ on Kakashi's head.

"Ouch! Damnit!" The jounin shouted, rubbing his gloved hand though his silver hair. A strange look appeared on Iruka's face, as if he had just recalled something painful and horrible.

"Now I remember why I don't have relationships." Iruka whispered, more to himself than Kakashi. "When I get close to people, they end up getting hurt." The chuunin shook Kakashi's hand off and ran down the street. Kakashi stood there, stunned. He definitely needed to talk to Genma and find out what had happened. He left, making sure to throw some kunai at that damned tree as he left.

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"You'd better stay away from him, Kakashi." Raido said as soon as the copy nin stuck his head through the window of their apartment.

"He's cursed, man. Sorry." Genma told him.

"It's always the hot ones, too." Raido complained.

"What do you mean, cursed?" Kakashi asked.

Genma handed him a handwritten list. "This is a list of all the known relationships of one Umino Iruka. I even put it in chronological order, earliest to latest." 'How did he do that?' Kakashi wondered. He'd only been gone for an hour!

"If you want to find out about the curse, work your way down that list. You'll learn all you need to know." Raido told him.

"Why should I start with the earliest? Logically, shouldn't I start with the most recent relationship if I want to find out what's going on?" Kakashi reasoned.

"Take a look at that list, dude." Genma said.

Kakashi looked over the list. It was pretty short to cover a whole lifetime. He went to the end and read the last name. Kakashi's pulse quickened when he saw the name was of a man. He went cold, though, when he read what was beside the name. In parentheses, straight to the point, was one word- deceased.

Kakashi looked at the name above it. _(Deceased)_ He went up three more names, and found the same thing. Five dead, and on a list of only about twenty.

Was that the curse? Was this the reason Iruka had suppressed his sex drive like he had?

Kakashi went back to the top of the list. The first name was Anko, ironically enough. Kakashi left Genma and Raido's and headed to the dumpling stand that Anko ritually staked out. He was going to find out everything there was to know about this curse: how it started, what it entailed, and most importantly, how to break it. To prove Gai wrong, of course. Not because Kakashi was interested in Iruka or anything like that.

Still, five dead. What was Iruka doing to these people? Kakashi rubbed his head where the nut had hit him. Had the curse begun?

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AN: Yes, it has taken me forever to write this chapter. Work sucks out my creative energy (all my energy, actually. Bleg), so I have to wait to write on the weekends when I've recovered a bit. It's starting to get exciting, though, isn't it?

Next Chapter: Kakashi meets the old girlfriends and boyfriends of Iruka and learns just what the curse does (sounds a lot like what I said this chapter was going to be last chapter, huh? Sorry about that; it came out a little slower than I'd planned.)

I love Denial!Kakashi, because he is the greatest in the world, except for wet Iruka. I also love the cute, all-knowing kitty!


	4. Chapter 4

The Curse:

Chapter 3

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"So what have you found out about the curse so far?" Anko asked Kakashi. The masked man glared at her (which pretty much meant his visible eye was narrowed, which also happened when he was smiling, watching something intently, or about to execute a ninjutsu from Suna, so it might not have had the desired effect); He was supposed to be doing the questioning, but as soon as he had sat Anko down and told her he needed to know about her history with Iruka and the curse, she had taken over his interrogation.

"Not much. Iruka thinks if someone gets too close to him, they get hurt. The reason I'm asking _you_ is because I'm lacking information." Kakashi explained in his 'talking to a dumb genin' voice.

"I was his first kiss." Anko told him. "We were both at a party the night before I left on a mission to a strange island with my jounin sensei. We played all of those games kids play at parties, and Iruka-kun and I ended up kissing each other."

'What does that have to do with the curse?' Kakashi wondered.

"While on that mission," Anko continued, "my master betrayed our village, placed a cursed seal on me, and wiped my memories. Orochimaru really was a bastard."

"Orochimaru was a bastard before all that. His betrayal wasn't Iruka's fault." Kakashi snapped. He couldn't believe Anko would even consider Iruka to be guilty of that! No wonder he didn't want to be in a relationship, if people kept blaming things like that on him.

"I know. It's just…bad things happen to the people Iruka gets close to. Maybe it's just coincident. Go down this list and you'll see. I don't want to believe it, and I've tried to convince Iruka that it has nothing to do with him, but…well…go visit these people and you'll see." Anko looked away sadly.

Kakashi stood up and left Anko sitting there. The next name on the list was a chuunin like Iruka, a kunoichi who did mostly paperwork. The Copy Nin located her within minutes.

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Kakashi observed Hagane Hitomi (a distant cousin of Kotetsu, he figured), the second name on the list, before he entered her office. She seemed like an Iruka-like woman; she filed papers quickly and efficiently, she spoke softly to the people who came in and out of her office, and she had sloppily colored pictures posted on a bulletin board, lovingly given by children that adored her.

"You once had a relationship with Umino Iruka." Kakashi stated as an introduction. "I need to know the extent of your relationship, and the existence, if any, of a curse associated with said relationship." He loved making his statements circle around people's heads like hungry vultures, loved watching their minds whirl to comprehend the long-winded loops of information he threw at them.

"The curse, huh? I admire your resolve, but just give up now, jounin-san. You'll only get hurt." Hitomi told him, not even looking up from her papers.

"I don't give up before even making an attempt." Kakashi shot back at her.

"Fine. The extent of my relationship with Iruka, you ask? I made out with him a time or two, back when we were teenagers and he was desperate for attention."

"And was there any curse?" Kakashi asked eagerly. He leaned forward.

Hitomi slid her chair back from her desk and stood up. She was dressed in standard ninja garb, except for her legs. Where most shinobi wore bandages, she wore armor on her legs, rather like Anko.

"Do you know why I wear these?" The kunoichi asked, pointing to the armor.

"To protect your legs in battle." Kakashi replied immediately. What else was armor for?

Hitomi shook her head and began to loosen the straps that bound the armor around her ankle and just under her knee. When she pulled the protective plate away, she revealed pale flesh that was marred by angry, jagged red scars. The other leg was bared as well, and showed similar damage.

"I wear this armor because I can barely walk without it. I went on a solo C-rank mission the evening Iruka and I got together, and something went wrong. I got caught by the enemy, and they slashed the tendons in my legs to ensure I couldn't run away. I barely escaped. I don't take missions anymore because I walk with a limp. Without this armor supporting me, I would collapse if I tried to take a step."

Hitomi strapped the armor back into place and hobbled back to her chair. Kakashi was stunned. He said nothing.

"I don't blame Iruka for this, just so you know." She whispered. "I tried to stay with him, after I got my injury, but I was too depressed about never being able to complete missions, and we drifted apart. When I heard about the things that happened to the others, though…it almost made me glad I stopped seeing him when I did. Iruka doesn't cause these things to happen, but bad luck follows him. Keep your distance, jounin-san." Hitomi warned.

Kakashi gave the woman a cold stare. "A little bad luck is no reason to give up on a man like Iruka. I'm sorry you've met ill fortune. Thank you for your time."

As Kakashi slipped out of the door, he wondered exactly when he had started considering Iruka worth getting hurt for.

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The next woman on Kakashi's list was much like Hitomi. She had been Iruka's girlfriend for only two days before she had taken a katana in her back during her routine training. There was still a deep scar on her back which she lifted up her shirt to show Kakashi.

The injuries didn't prove anything about a curse, of course. Iruka was probably just attracted to accident-prone women. Kakashi thought that anyone that would give up on him so easily didn't deserve to be with Iruka.

The next woman was the first of the five deceased. The Copy Ninja wasn't sure how he was going to interview her, barring forbidden ninjutsu. He went to the Memorial Stone and found her name carved in tiny, perfect script.

"Did you know Natsumi?" A voice asked from behind him. Kakashi blinked and turned around.

"Huh?"

"You were pointing to her name. Did you know her?" The woman behind him asked again.

"No. I was just trying to find out something. Were you a friend of hers?"

The woman, it turned out, had been Natsumi's best friend, and knew all the nitty gritty details of her relationships (why was it that men were pigs when they talked about their exploits, yet women could gossip all they wanted, and it was considered normal, Kakashi wondered?).

"Natsumi met Iruka in the Mission Room, and they dated for about a month. Remind me why this is any of your business again." The friend said.

"You've heard about Iruka's curse, right?" The woman nodded. "I'm trying to break it." Kakashi explained. The woman must have interpreted that differently that Kakashi had meant, though, because she gave him a knowing look and surrendered the information.

"Natsumi and Iruka-kun slept together the night before she went on the mission that she lost her life on." The woman began sniffling. "I walked with her out of the village the next morning. She was so happy that day, but the next time I saw her, she was being carried in on a stretcher, all beaten and bloody."

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The next few names on the list went the same way. The women that Iruka kissed were left with scars, the ones he tried to go further with suffered even more. The women that Iruka had had sex with were dead (accounting for two more on the deceased list). Kakashi had gotten down to the point where the names changed from female to male. Strangely enough, the first male was Raido.

'The man could have said something when I was at his damn house!' Kakashi thought. The scarred jounin loved pissing him off.

Kakashi sped back over to Genma and Raido's apartment and climbed in their window. "Out." He ordered Genma.

"Talk now." He ordered Raido, after Genma sulked out.

"What's the magic word?" Raido teased.

"I've got a kunai?" Kakashi asked, waving one menacingly.

"That works. After girlfriend number three bit the dust, Iruka went out to a bar and we met up and had a few drinks. He said he thought he was cursed with women, so I asked if he had ever considered men. He hadn't, and he was drunk enough to consider experimenting."

"Experimenting?" Kakashi prompted.

"Yeah, you know. We made out, and I ended up showing him some of the fun-er aspects of man-man sex." Kakashi gave him a blunt stare. "Fine! I gave him a blow job, okay? You're acting like a jealous boyfriend, man!"

"So what happened to you after?" Kakashi asked, eager to get the images out of his head (the ones of Raido as quickly as he could, those of drunk, experimenting Iruka a little more reluctantly).

"This scar." Raido answered, pointing to the disfigurement that spread from his nose onto his left cheek.

"You seem to have gotten off a whole lot easier than the women did, if all you got for sucking him off was a scar." Kakashi pointed out. Maybe there was hope! To break the curse, that was, and prove Gai wrong; not for Kakashi to date Iruka, or anything like that…

"This isn't just a scar. The reason the scar tissue is so strange is because the blade that gave me the wound was scalding hot and laced with poison. I was unconscious for three days after it happened, and I would have died if Tsunade hadn't been the medical-nin that cared for me." Raido explained in a flat voice.

"Oh." Kakashi opened his mental mouth and shoved a proverbial foot inside.

"I tried to see him again, after I recovered, but he wouldn't. I think he blamed himself, for some reason. It was half a year before he would even look at another man."

The way that Raido's voice trailed off told Kakashi that the jounin didn't have anything else to tell. He left and went to find the next man on the list.

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AN: I can't write any more tonight. I'm soooo tired. I meant to finish this on the weekend and post it, but my little sister was having a birthday party, and everything has been chaotic for a few days.

I hope this isn't turning out too badly, IcySapphire. It probably isn't what you were planning on getting, but I hope that once I get a little more time, it will get better.

Next Chapter: The final names on the list (hint- the last one is going to be important!), and Iruka finds out that Kakashi is still asking around about him. Confrontation!


	5. Chapter 5

Author Note: I feel sooooo bad! I haven't updated in over a month! Shame on me. In my defense, though, I've been extremely busy. I went out of the country for a week, then I had to finish up with work at my summer job, and then I've been moving in/getting orientated at my college (wooT! I'll have more time to write soon). I want to give a big thanks to all those people who kept reviewing and reminding me to write more. Your encouragement is what made me sacrifice the first free time I've had since I started moving in to this next chapter.

PS- I don't know how much smut is going to be in these next few chapters, or when it will start, but in case I do any editing like in Training with Jounin, you can obtain unedited chapters from aarinfantasy forum, my e-mail, kakairu livejournal (whenever I get around to putting this up there), and at the new livejournal community, Shinobi Sex. I'll put another reminder when this applies.

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The Curse:

Chapter 4

There were only two men left on Kakashi's list, and both were deceased. Lesser ninja might have given up at this point, but Kakashi was a jounin. More importantly, he was a jounin who had been extremely lucky about locating someone close to the dead women on the list who would tell him what he needed. The Copy Nin was confident in his ability to find someone for this male ninja too.

The name of the man wasn't one that he recognized, but Konoha had been a big village before the attack by Sound, so he hadn't know every shinobi during the time of this 'Teuchi Masaru' had died. The name sounded somehow familiar, though…

Anyways, Kakashi was quite sure that he could find this shinobi with ease.

Five hours, twenty-six inquiries, and three break-ins to the shinobi record halls later, Kakashi still couldn't even find mention of Teuchi Masaru. He had scoured the casualty reports, checked documentation of missions during the time period of Iruka's relationship with the man (half a year after Raido's injury, give or take a month), and even checked paperwork to see if Teuchi was a foreign nin visiting Konoha. Nothing turned up.

The jounin was about to resort to desperate measures (breaking in to the Hokage's office, not asking Genma and Raido, who would have had to know who the man was for him to appear on the list; Kakashi had resolved long ago to never let himself get desperate enough to ask them for anything more than a casual favor, and definitely not more than one in a single day). He crouched down on the dirt path he had been pacing on and began to draw out a strategy in the dirt.

The dirt 'X' that represented Kakashi had just gotten past the dirt 'O' guards and was about to arrow its way into the rectangle that was the Hokage's dirt office when a sandaled foot appeared on his battle plan and shot the whole idea to Hell.

"Kakashi, why won't you just leave me alone?" The foot's owner asked sadly. The foot's owner sounded scarily similar to Iruka. Upon further inspection, the foot's owner looked and smelled like Iruka, too. Now would probably be a good time to pretend like he hadn't been stalking Iruka's old flames.

"I'm not the one who found you, Iruka-sensei. What have I done wrong?" He asked, trying to make his visible eye look as innocent as possible.

"You mean besides making plans to break into the Hokage's office to find the records of a man I once dated?" Iruka said with a sigh. He didn't look angry, per say, just tired, as if he wished the day would just end so he could curl up in bed and pretend it had never happened.

"You could tell that just by those shapes?" Kakashi asked incredulously. His elaborate plan had looked more like a tic-tac-toe board than an offensive maneuver. Damn, Iruka was good!

"You mumble when you're plotting." Iruka pointed out.

"What does that have to do with…oh. Right. I need to stop that, huh?" Kakashi asked sheepishly scratching the back of his head with his left hand.

Iruka turned and began walking down the path. He stopped when Kakashi didn't follow and called back to him.

"Come." That was it, a simple order. Kakashi, being a good, obedient shinobi, followed without any more prompting.

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When Kakashi was lonely or confused, he usually found himself at the Memorial Stone, talking to his old teammates. Not surprisingly, the dirt path that he had chosen to draw his plans on was one that led to the village's Stone, and then to the graveyard.

Iruka walked ahead of him in a brisk pace that sped up every time Kakashi attempted to walk beside him. The chuunin made it clear that he was guiding the jounin. Not walking side-by-side like friends. They passed the Memorial Stone, which didn't surprise Kakashi because he'd already checked it. The next place they walked to, the Village graveyard, did throw Kakashi into a bit of a loop, because they left the shinobi section and began navigating the rows of civilian gravestones.

Oh. That might explain why Teuchi Masaru had no ninja records. He wasn't a ninja.

Iruka walked five rows down and eight columns to the left. He kneeled at a grave marker. Kakashi didn't need to read the name to know it was Teuchi Masaru.

"Go ahead. Ask." Iruka ordered. The jounin wasn't sure whether to just comply or deny having anything to ask. The thoughts his excessive Icha Icha reading provided about forceful senseis didn't help matters.

'Elusive answer-no-jutsu, don't fail me!' He thought to himself, before leaning his hip casually on the next gravestone. "Do you come here often?"

The chuunin sensei didn't answer with words, but the look he gave the older man was clearly an 'only when certain people go dredging up unpleasant memories' stare (Iruka's expressions were much more _expressive_ than Kakashi's somehow. Maybe it was because Iruka's were actually visible…) "That's the wrong question. Ask." Iruka repeated.

Kakashi tried again, this time with a more serious question. "Who was he to you?" He gestured to the grave as he spoke.

Iruka shook his head. "No. You know that. Ask again."

Masaru had been Iruka's lover. Kakashi hadn't wanted to assume anything (because assuming could be potentially dangerous, not because he was revolted by the thought of another person touching Iruka the way _he_ didn't want to), but he supposed he could if Iruka was telling him he knew it.

"What happened to him?" Kakashi asked, sure he was asking what Iruka wanted him to now.

"He died. You aren't asking the right question, Kakashi-san."

Kakashi growled in frustration. "What is the right question then?"

Iruka didn't look at Kakashi; his eyes stayed trained on Masaru's gravestone. When he finally chose to speak, his voice shook.

"The right question is the one you've spent all of today trying to figure out. You're supposed to ask how I killed him."

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_Six months after Raido recovered from his life threatening injury, Iruka noticed that there was someone that had caught his eye. He was still worried about his luck with love, but he wanted to open up to someone _so_ badly, he began to convince himself it was all in his head. After all, everyone he'd dated in the past had been a ninja, so they'd been in constant danger anyway. Maybe it was a horrible coincident. _

_This new person, however, didn't risk his life every day, didn't wield sharp weapons with dangerous precision, didn't drain his own life's energy to kill others. He was a civilian. Iruka thought that meant he'd be safe. _

_Teuchi Masaru was the nephew of the ramen stand owner. He was helping his uncle load and unload supplies and equipment into a wagon when Iruka first noticed him, shirtless, tan, muscled, glistening with sweat. Never mind that Iruka could have finished unloading the cart with one hand without breathing heavy; Masaru's body was beautiful. The most wonderful thing about it, the most exotic, attractive part, was that it was free of scars. Masaru was hot, he was safe, and he made a point of smiling at Iruka and lifting the heaviest packages he could whenever the sensei was looking. _

_Despite the fact that Iruka was sure his attention wouldn't hurt Marasu, he still erred on the side of caution and moved slowly. The first time Masaru took him out, Iruka talked with him, ate with him, and kept his distance. He allowed a tiny peck of a goodnight kiss, but nothing more. He waited over a week for a second date, carefully monitoring Masaru from afar to make sure nothing was amiss. On the second date, they held hands, and the kiss was more than a peck. _

_As he went on more and more dates with Masaru, nothing bad happened, and he began to like the civilian more with each passing day. When Masaru asked Iruka if he was ready for more than kissing, Iruka decided that he was. That first time, Iruka used what he'd learned from his half-drunken encounter with Raido on Masaru, who'd been pleased to say the least. Just to be cautious, he didn't let Masaru return the favor or try anything else, but secretly, he had already decided that he would throw away his inhibitions on their next date. _

_But the next time Iruka saw Masaru, he walked with a limp from a shattered foot bone. It was just a careless accident, Masaru explained; he'd been distracted at work and dropped a box he'd been carrying on his foot. It was nothing to worry over, he assured Iruka; the doctors had told him it would heal with no lasting damage. _

_Iruka hadn't planned on having sex with Masaru after that. He cared about Masaru too much, and it hurt to see the other man suffer. He resolved to check the man over for any other wounds, end their date with no physical contact, and begin the process of drifting apart from Masaru until he could adequately fake that he didn't care for him and they could go their separate ways. _

_Looking back, checking his wounds probably wasn't the best idea. The inspection led to clothes being shed, and the examining touches led to caresses, and Iruka wanted so much to just believe Masaru when he told the school teacher that everything would be okay, because it seemed so perfect. And it was. It was perfect when Masaru stripped Iruka of his uniform, perfect when he covered every inch of his skin with kisses, perfect when he joined their bodies with pleasure. _

_It was perfect waking up in his arms the next day, perfect running errands for the Hokage that would let him pass the store where Masaru was unloading boxes with his shirtless, flawless body, at the bottom of a steep hill. It was perfect right up until the time when a fully loaded cart left unattended at the top of the hill began to slowly inch down the incline. It gathered speed quickly going down such a steep angle. Iruka and Masaru, both looking at each other and thinking how perfect life was, didn't notice. _

_There was about two and a half seconds between the time Masaru noticed the cart and when he was being mangled beneath its wheels. Two and a half seconds would have been enough for a shinobi to jump out of the way. Masaru was a civilian. He only had time for one strangled cry as the life was ground out of him. Iruka watched, frozen in his spot. He didn't move as people ran frantically around trying to find a doctor. He didn't move when the medic ninjas poured their chakra into the lifeless shell of his lover. He didn't move when the clean-up crew scraped Masaru off the pavement and scrubbed away his blood. _

_Two and a half seconds. That should have been enough time. Iruka should have been able to save him. He was a chuunin, and he'd never been the fastest, but he should have tried. If nothing else, he should have died with Masaru. Maybe that was part of the curse, though-watching the people he loved suffer and die, and never being able to share their fate. He hadn't been able to move when it happened, hadn't even remembered that he _could_ move. But still…two and a half seconds. That should have been enough._

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Iruka told Kakashi the story with the same quiet, regretful tone he'd used when he told Kakashi to follow him. The Copy nin tried to put his arm around the chuunin's shoulders and pull him into a comforting hug, but Iruka pulled away.

"It wasn't your fault, Iruka. Everyone freezes up sometimes. It was a freak accident, and there was nothing you could have done to change that."

"I know people freeze up. If it was only that…but it's not. I shouldn't have let it get that far. I should have stopped and saved him when I saw the warning signs. I was so selfish. I let myself love him even though I knew what it would do to him. It wasn't just my reaction time that killed him; it was my selfish love." Iruka blinked away tears as he stared at the name of his lover written in the stone.

Kakashi wrapped his arms around Iruka again, holding on even when Iruka struggled and tried to push him away. The brunet finally stopped struggling when he realized he couldn't escape the jounin. The tired look came back on his face.

"Iruka, your love wasn't selfish. Masaru wanted it, and if you really loved him, then your love was probably the best thing to happen to him in his entire life. His death was an accident, not your fault, and you made him happy up until his final moments." Kakashi whispered into Iruka's ears. He wasn't sure where the words were coming from; he wasn't usually so sympathetic and soppy. He blamed Obito's crybaby eye and too many hurt/comfort scenes in his porn.

"I'd give anything to be able to experience something like that before I die." He mumbled to himself. He thought he knew why he'd think a thought like that, but he didn't want to think about it and the implications right now, especially when there was a chuunin sensei in his arms that needed comfort.

For a long time, there was silence in the graveyard. Finally, Iruka began to protest Kakashi's hold on him, so the jounin released him.

"Why did you tell me this?" He asked Iruka before the chuunin could flee.

"You've proven that you'll pry into my personal business no matter how I protest, so I figured I could at least keep this just between the two of us. I don't know why you care about my past, but I thought once you found out the facts about the curse, you'd stop and leave me alone." Iruka explained.

"I only have one more person to learn about, Iruka. I'm not going to give up now. I'll figure out what this curse is and how I can stop it. A person like you doesn't deserve to be alone." Kakashi turned to leave, but thought better of it.

"By the way, who is this last pers-" He started to ask.

"It's getting late." Iruka replied quickly, cutting him off. "Maybe we can talk again some other time. I've got to be going now."

Iruka jumped off into the trees and left Kakashi alone, in the dark, in the graveyard. He stood for a moment, reflecting on how warm his body still felt where Iruka had been pressed against him. When he started to leave, he tripped over a gravestone and bruised his shin. It wasn't the curse, he decided, just carelessness. He was going to prove that the incidents that happened with Iruka's relationships weren't the fault of the innocent chuunin. He was sure the last name on the list would provide the missing pieces to the puzzle. The name sounded familiar, but he wasn't sure why. It was strange, though. Genma had only given him a first name with the deceased mark beside it. Who was this 'Mizuki' person, anyways?

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Sorry if you were expecting more after such a long wait, but I have to get through the last of the boring before we can get to the good stuff.

PS- Italics were in Iruka's POV, in case you got confused. There's a lot of repetition and long, drawn out sentences in that section, which I felt described Iruka's state of mind best. Sorry if it gets on your nerves or anything.

So, raise your hand of you suspected that Mizuki was going to show up.

I'll try to write more soon as possible. Peace out!

Demonrubberducky


	6. Chapter 6

AN: For all of you who have asked questions about Mizuki and why he's dead, just have faith in me. Answers will come. I have watched all the god-awful fillers (please, Kakashi-gaiden, come soon! Save this series from the grave!), and this won't conflict. I even went back and watched the Mizuki Returns arc again for this. I'll warn you, Mizuki is a psychotic bastard.

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Chapter 5

Just like with Masaru, this Mizuki fellow didn't show up in any of the ninja records Kakashi checked. He didn't ask around this time for Iruka's sake. Mizuki wasn't a civilian, either. Since there was no last name, he had to check every civilian record in the directory to be sure, but the Sharingan was handy when one needed to speed-read. The man just wasn't in any of the files.

Kakashi got a sinking feeling. The only time a ninja was totally erased from the system like that was if they were to turn traitor. Mizuki didn't appear in Kakashi's copy of the Bingo Book, so Kakashi assumed he really must be dead and taken care of. It still didn't bode well for Iruka, though. Kakashi knew firsthand how traitors, and those close to them, were treated by the village. Kakashi's father had committed suicide because of it, and Kakashi himself had hidden behind a mask for the majority of his life. Thinking about Iruka going through that made him want to wrap his arms around the other man and guard him from the rest of the world.

That being said, Kakashi really didn't want to ask Iruka what had happened, but he needed to know. How could he break Iruka's curse (not that he believed there was a curse, or anything) if he didn't have all the available information? And Kakashi had to break that curse, no matter what.

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As soon as the bell rang to release the academy students from their classes, Kakashi was in Iruka's room, take out from Ichiraku held up as an offering for the sensei. The copy nin had interrogated Naruto earlier and the kitsune assured him that ramen was Iruka's favorite food. Everything was ramen in Naruto's head, though, so Kakashi was nervous until the chuunin took the steaming food with a grateful smile.

"I don't suppose you've given up yet?" Iruka asked, looking hopeful.

"Nope." Kakashi replied in the most chipper voice he could summon.

"Listen Iruka-"

"Look, Kakashi-" They both began, cutting themselves short when they realized the other was speaking. They both waited for the other to finish his thoughts. When they did speak, it was, once again, simultaneous.

"I need to know about Mizuki-"

"I don't like talking about Mizuki-"

"I just want to help-"

"I know you just want to help-"

Iruka slapped a hand over Kakashi's masked lips to stop him from speaking.

"I know you just want to help," he repeated, "but I don't think I'd be able to tell you everything, and not just because everything about him is classified now. You might be able to find out something from him, but I seriously doubt it. He's pretty messed up now."

"Mmph mmmph mpH?" Kakashi asked. Iruka removed his hands.

"What was that?" the chuunin asked.

"He's not dead?" Kakashi gasped again.

"No, although I guess that's what people would say after he disappeared the way he did. He's kept in one of the maximum security cells in the basement of the Konoha prison."

"Maximum security! Who was this guy?" Kakashi wondered aloud.

"He's the one who staged the jailbreak last year. Remember, criminals running around, mass chaos, angry Hokage? You lent me Pakkun to help hunt him down." Iruka pointed out.

"Oh, that jailbreak. Right." Kakashi tried to slip in a suave save, but Iruka just raised an eyebrow.

"Is there anything else I should know about this guy, Iruka-sensei?" Kakashi asked.

"I told you, I don't like talking about it. You know where to find him. I don't know why you're still here." Iruka snapped.

"Maybe I like spending time with you, Iruka-sensei." Kakashi purred, but exited the classroom nonetheless.

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Iruka stared out the window at Kakashi's retreating figure until he was completely out of sight. A faint blush tinted his cheeks.

_"Maybe I like spending time with you, Iruka-sensei."_ He had said.

Maybe…. He was Hatake Kakashi, genius jounin of Konoha…maybe he really could break the curse like he said.

"_I just want to help."_ He had said. And he was Hatake Kakashi…maybe it wouldn't be so bad to hope…

No. He didn't dare even hope. Hope led to pain. Hope led to self-delusion, which led to hurting the people he cared about. Iruka couldn't let himself hope, not even for the Man of a Thousand Jutsus. He would have to stay cold, stay firm, and not let him get any closer than he already was.

"_I'm not going to give up now. I'll figure out what this curse is and how I can stop it. A person like you doesn't deserve to be alone."_ He had said.

'Hatake Kakashi, please don't get hurt.' Iruka prayed.

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Getting himself into the maximum security cell that Mizuki was kept in was surprisingly easy. It was for Kakashi, anyways, but that might have been because he had ANBU connections and because the guard on duty owed him a hell of a lot of money.

Mizuki looked harmless enough to Kakashi. The prisoner's muscles were atrophied and his arms were wrapped around him in a straight jacket (Kakashi could see the bumps where chakra-suppressing handcuffed encircled his wrists, though). Mizuki's silver hair was matted and dirty, and he didn't seem to care if spit flew from his mouth as he laughed manically, which he did often.

"What do you want, jounin? I won't tell you anything about Orochimaru-sama!" the obviously deranged chuunin shrieked.

Orochimaru? Damn that bastard for once again hurting someone he cared for. Kakashi should have known that Orochimaru would be involved somehow. That would explain why this basket-case was so psycho, then.

"I don't care about that snake. What do you know about Umino Iruka?" Kakashi asked. He shuddered as Mizuki smirked and his eyes began to glow with an evil light.

"What do I know about him? He's mine! He may think he's free of me, but he's mine, and as soon as I get free, I'll make sure he knows it." Mizuki began struggling violently against his constrains. "I'll strangle his perfect little throat until his eyes bulge. I'll mark him with scars until I can't even see his skin. I'll fuck him until he begs me to kill him. Then he'll see!" the prisoner began to laugh again, tilting back his head and shaking as saliva flew from his mouth. Kakashi had seen a lot of fucked-up things in his life, but he had never been so disgusted. He'd also never wanted to kill someone, even Orochimaru, as much as he wanted to kill Mizuki now.

Suddenly the demonic laughter stopped and Mizuki looked straight at Kakashi, eerily calm.

"Did you know, Iruka used to wear white when he was younger?" He asked. Kakashi shook his head. Was the man schizophrenic or something?

"He was so innocent. It made me want to stain him." Mizuki continued with a chuckle. No, he didn't have alternate personalities; he was just that psychotic.

"Everyone loved him _so much_. The other kids were always trying to cheer him up and laughing at his jokes. Even the fucking Hokage coddled him. All the little weakling had to do was look pretty and cry and everyone else was at his beck and call. I used to have a dream that I would slice him with a kunai until all of his pure white clothes turned red with blood." Kakashi wanted to silence the man, with his fists, or a kunai, or whatever rusty, horrific looking weapons Ibiki kept on hand for torture, but he couldn't if he wanted to find out the whole story. He listened as Mizuki continued.

"I had to do everything for him. I pretended to be his friend, because it was wonderful watching him be miserable. He told me all of his problems, how lonely he was without his family, how he was afraid of the dark, how he had a crush but didn't know what to say to the girl. He was so pathetic!

"I even had to help him through the teaching exam! The bastards wouldn't let me teach the little brats, but they'd let a weakling like him! And even after I did all that for him, the little slut wouldn't sleep with me. I'd been his friend for years, let him whine and cry on my shoulders, and what reward did I get? He said he didn't want to ruin our friendship, that he didn't want me to suffer! Then he taunted me by crying to me about how the girls he'd kissed got hurt. It was easy for me to convince him it was his fault. But he still didn't come to me for comfort!" Mizuki hissed.

"So it was you that put this curse into his head?" Kakashi growled. Mizuki continued his ramblings as if he wasn't even aware that Kakashi was still in the room.

"So when I met Orochimaru-sama, I realized what I had to do. I'd go and get Orochimaru's power and then I'd return and make Iruka be mine! That would be so much more satisfying than having him willingly anyways. But then that damned Kyuubi ruined that! I hate that bastard, stealing Iruka away. He'd always go and get the brat ramen instead of staying with me! When I escape here, I'm going to take care of that brat, too. I think I'll skin him alive while Iruka watches. Wouldn't that be beautiful? Or maybe…maybe I should have my fun with Iruka first, while that damned fox watches? It makes me hard just thinking about it!"

Kakashi had never felt rage like this before. He grabbed Mizuki by his tangled knap of hair and slammed his head against the metal table in front of him. It brought him a sadistic satisfaction when blood began to flow down Mizuki's face. The traitor chuunin calmed down again.

"You wanted to known about my relationship with that slut? He wouldn't sleep with me, even when I was his friend, until Teuchi Masaru died." He paused for a horrific giggle. Kakashi wondered whether the civilian's death was really an accident. "He was so heartbroken I almost danced when I saw him. It was easy enough after that to get him drunk and take him. He barely even remembers it. He probably even thinks he consented! So naïve. Tsk, tsk, jounin-san. You look angry. Do you care for the weak little slut?" Kakashi's reply, non-verbal as it was, sent the laughing man clear across the room. Kakashi's knuckles were a little split up after it, but he thought it was worth it.

"Listen carefully, Mizuki. If you ever so much as say his name again, I'll make you hurt so bad that Ibiki's torture will seem like a massage. There won't be enough left of you for a nin-dog to find." Kakashi whispered.

Mizuki licked his lips. "How kinky. Maybe, instead of an innocent little chuunin, I should have had a naughty jounin. So, how does a dirty ninja like you enjoy Iruka? Do you make him scream?" Mizuki asked, giving the Copy-nin a lewd smile.

Kakashi dove onto Mizuki and began to make good on his promise. It took three ANBU to drag him off of Mizuki's unconscious form.

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Kakashi found Iruka pretty much where he had left him; the chuunin was grading papers at his desk in his classroom. Kakashi transported himself behind the brunet and wrapped his arms around him.

"I'm sorry for everything you've had to go though." Was all the explanation he would offer a confused Iruka.

"I guess you spoke with Mizuki. He wasn't always like that, you know. He was gentle and kind, before." Iruka explained.

"No. He wasn't, Iruka. He was crazy all along. He was plotting against you for years, telling you lies, hurting you without you even realizing." Kakashi's arms tightened around Iruka. He wouldn't let anyone else hurt his chuunin.

"No. None of that started until after I slept with him. It was a mistake, I knew it as soon as I woke up, but I was grieving and drunk and he was there and I ended up asking him for comfort." Iruka started justifying.

"Do you remember that, or is that what he told you?" Kakashi hissed.

"What difference does it make?" Iruka asked.

"He took advantage of you, Iruka. You were drunk. What sort of friend would do that to someone who had just lost a loved one? Mizuki was a sick bastard. It had nothing to do with you."

"He told me he sought out Orochimaru because of me." Iruka whispered.

Kakashi's eyes widened. "So you have heard what he had to say for himself."

"I thought that maybe there was still some of the old Mizuki there, the good one, but he's gone now. He's crazy now. He doesn't know what he's saying."

Kakashi turned Iruka's chair around and looked into his watering brown eyes. "Iruka, it isn't your fault that Mizuki is a CRAZY bastard. He isn't crazy because you slept with him. He isn't crazy because you cursed him. He's crazy because there's something wrong with him. He was never your friend. He admits that he wanted to hurt you from the beginning. You were the victim here. It's not your fault." Kakashi kept repeating those words. He had a feeling that if Iruka heard them enough, he might begin to believe him. Kakashi didn't know how long it would take for him to undo all the brainwashing Mizuki had done on Iruka, but time didn't matter. He would spend forever if he had to.

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Iruka didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to say, or what to think. Kakashi was looking in his eyes and whispering words that sounded so nice, and his body was radiating warmth that made Iruka want to lean forward and melt the ice that surrounded him. _"It's not your fault. You deserve better."_ The copy nin kept saying. It was like a mantra. Could it be true?

Could Mizuki have been lying to him from the start? He'd said so in his ravings, but he'd acted so differently when they were younger, so much nicer. Could it be true?

But there were others. Mizuki wasn't the only one that had suffered after getting close to him. There was Anko, and Raido, Hitomi and Natsumi, Masaru. It couldn't just be coincident, like Kakashi was saying oh-so-gently in his ear.

Oh, he needed to get away from Kakashi quickly, before all of those feelings he'd repressed began to surface again. He was already too aware of Kakashi's breath against his cheek as he held him in his warm arms. He had to get away before…

…Before Kakashi leaned forward and claimed a kiss from Iruka's not-quite protesting mouth.

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It was too soon for Kakashi to be kissing Iruka, he knew that, but he couldn't help it. The chuunin looked so forlorn, and he leaned forward slightly when he saw Kakashi's lips approaching, and Kakashi hadn't been able to stop himself. If there was a curse, let it do its worst- kissing Iruka was worth every second of it.

That's all for now. Next chapter: Will Kakashi feel the curse's wrath for kissing Iruka? And if so, will he be able to stop it as the two grow even closer?

Whew! Mizuki is, like I said, rather psychotic. I actually wanted to see if I could write in a perspective like that, in preparation for an original fic that I might one day take the time to write down. But seriously, in the Mizuki arc, did anyone else get that impression when he kept saying he wanted to 'play' with Iruka, and that he wanted to finish him off slowly. He was definitely after Iruka's ass.

On a lighter note, though, I might have to write a fic about Pakkun after that. Did anyone else notice how interested he was in Iruka's relationships? He was obviously sent by Kakashi to spy on Iruka and gather that vital info…

I'll try to update soon, within the next three days or so. If I don't, yell at me, because it means I'm being lazy.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed. You keep me laughing and smiling and writing, and I love you all!

Demonrubberducky


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Sorry if you guys had trouble getting into the last chapter. I posted it a few minutes before the site was scheduled to go down for whatever updates they were doing, and I guess that messed it up a little. I deleted it and reposted, so it should be working now.

PS: Your reviews are hilarious and I love reading them. I have to say, though, **americanXminority, **that your threat is the scariest one I've received yet, and I've had numerous people threaten to smite me. Chucking HET, that's a bit harsh. That's why I'm sitting down and writing this right now. But the moral of this story isn't to threaten the authoress to get more yaoi, it's make the authoress laugh for hasty updates.

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Chapter 6

Kakashi was just starting to really get into the kiss (and by 'get in', we mean his tongue was steadily creeping into Iruka's mouth and his hands were slipping stealthily under the chuunin's shirt in search of skin to caress) when Iruka pulled back suddenly.

"Kakashi, we've got to stop this." Iruka gasped, holding Kakashi's shoulders at arm's length to keep them separated. The jounin decided to interpret Iruka's words as 'We've got to stop this silly protesting and get on with out kissing,' a statement with which he readily agreed. The Copy Ninja ducked down and closed the distance between the two of them in one quick motion that left Iruka's arms wrapped around Kakashi's neck. A second kiss commenced.

A second kiss was abruptly ended as the chuunin shoved the jounin away for the second time. "Kakashi, no. I don't want you to get hurt. It might all ready be too late." Iruka warned.

"In that case, we should keep going. You know, make it worth the effort." Kakashi said, nuzzling Iruka's cheek and trying to draw him into kiss number three.

"No. We can't." Iruka mumbled. He was trying to remember why it was so important they not kiss. Kakashi was so distracting, so convincing…his hands felt so warm, brushing up his back, making the skin tingle.

Kakashi grinned to himself as Iruka's protests died away. He continued running his fingers up and down Iruka's spine, wanting to start exploring lower down, but knowing he couldn't do that quite yet. He distracted his wandering hands with a deep scar he felt on Iruka's back.

"Where'd you get that?" He mumbled, ghosting his fingers across the sensitive scar tissue.

"Mizuki." Iruka murmured back.

'Oh shit!' Kakashi's mind screamed. Why'd he have to pick the one scar that Mizuki had left to point out to Iruka? The chuunin hadn't really responded yet…maybe if Kakashi kept the other man distracted enough, Iruka would forget what he'd just said and let Kakashi keep going.

No such luck. "Mizuki." Iruka muttered again. Realization chose that moment to wake up in Iruka's mind. His eyes widened. "Shit!" He cried, pushing Kakashi away much more firmly this time.

"Iruka, I…" Kakashi started to explain, not really knowing what to say.

"Stay away from me, Hatake Kakashi." Iruka begged.

"I don't want to." Kakashi replied, taking a step forward. Iruka stepped back quickly to avoid coming into contact with the jounin again.

"You'll get hurt." Iruka said with a shudder.

"I don't care." Kakashi said, taking another step. Iruka backed up again.

"I don't want this." He whimpered.

"You're lying." Kakashi stepped forward again. Iruka had to back up to the wall to keep their bodies from touching. The scarecrow started to move forward again. Iruka reached out and placed a hand on his cheek.

"Please, Kakashi." He pleaded. The chuunin's brown eyes shimmered with uncried tears. Kakashi stilled.

"A week." Kakashi said. Iruka's eyebrows wrinkled in confusion- Kakashi secretly noted how adorable it made him look.

"We'll give it a week, this curse." Kakashi explained. "I should be losing a limb for this, or getting some rather traumatic emotional scars. I'll stay away from you for a week. If nothing happens to me, then we'll know the curse doesn't exist"

"And if something happens?" Iruka asked.

"Then I'll stay away." Kakashi told the chuunin, lying through his teeth.

"And what happens if the week ends and you haven't been hurt?" he inquired warily.

Kakashi smiled. "That will be for us to decide together, one week from now." The jounin pulled up his mask, gave Iruka a chaste peck on the cheek, and vanished from the classroom.

Iruka sat back down at his desk. At first, he tried to grade papers. He gave up after a few futile minutes. He pulled out his calendar and tried to make lesson plans, but ended up with nothing but a big circle around the date the week would end. He finally forgot about doing anything productive and concentrated on trying not to think about how warm Kakashi's arms had felt.

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A week. A week. Kakashi could survive for a week. Hell, he'd survived for twenty-seven YEARS relatively unscathed. A week was nothing. Kakashi wouldn't be taking any chances, though. He hopped over to the Hokage's office and filled out an official 'training leave' form- not that the slave-driver Hokage wouldn't still send him on missions, but at least they'd be easy, lower level ones. He then stopped by Gai's apartment and told his rival that he would have to avoid physical contests for the next week (he spouted off some excuse about the importance of training the shinobi mind before Gai could burst into tears). Then, he went to his apartment and did something he hadn't done in years. Yes, insert gasp Kakashi cleaned his apartment. Anything he might trip over was stored safely away, all sharp objects were carefully wrapped up, and the flammable substances moved to his closet for the week. Yes, he'd survived plenty of weeks without getting hurt, but this week was more important than all of them, and he wasn't taking any chances.

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Less than a half hour after all of Kakashi's safety preparations had been made, the jounin received a summons from the Hokage. She handed him a mission before he could even protest.

"Tsunade-sama! This is a B-rank mission!" he whined. "I'm on training leave!"

"So?" Tsunade asked, indifferent to his complaints.

"So? I shouldn't be doing B-rank missions while I'm training." He said. He pouted through his mask, just to make his point.

"What do you propose I do with you then, Kakashi? I can't afford to not use one of my highest ranking ninja right now."

"The genin keep complaining about having to pick up trash around the village. I could do that! Litter is our enemy, you know." Kakashi told the Hokage.

"And who should I send on the B-rank mission, hmm?" Tsunade challenged.

"The genin? I don't know. They _are_ always complaining about how they only get low ranking missions. It'd shut them up." Kakashi reasoned.

Tsunade stared at Kakashi for a moment, wondering what was going on in his silver-haired head. "Kakashi, I've never known you to be so passive." She said suspiciously. Her eyes widened as she recalled a juicy piece of gossip she'd heard.

"This sudden desire to stay close to the village, it wouldn't have anything to do with Iruka-kun, now would it?" She asked slyly. The tiny portion of Kakashi's pale face that was visible became a bright shade of red.

"No." He said.

"Go pick up trash, then, brat. You better be grateful for this!" The Fifth Hokage dismissed him with a wave.

"I'll destroy all the litter in Konoha." Kakashi promised. He saluted and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Tsunade shook her head. 'Lovesick shinobi.' She muttered, taking a long sip from her secret stash of sake.

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Kakashi, as was fitting for an elite jounin ninja of Konoha, slew all of Konoha's litter within twenty-three minutes. All but one piece, that is. He spotted it as he passed by the training ground. It appeared to be an innocent granola-bar wrapper, but Kakashi wasn't fooled. It was a threat to the security of Konoha! Ok, maybe it wasn't, but if that mindset helped Kakashi finish his mission early, then he was willing to go with that. Anything to make sure he stayed safe for a week, so he could get back to kissing Iruka.

Kakashi absently reached down for the offending trash, thinking more about the feel of Iruka's lips on his than about the mission at hand. It was only his jounin-rank speed and honed survival instincts that caused him to roll around quickly and avoid a rogue kunai that came whistling toward his head. It buried itself in the trunk of a tree right behind Kakashi. It was still quivering when he turned to look at it.

Kakashi was on alert immediately. He left a clone standing in his place and took a safer vantage in the trees, weapons in hand. The bushes rustled as someone pushed their way through to where Kakashi had stood. He prepared to attack.

"Konohamaru-kun, you lost out last kunai!" Moegi moaned as the three children emerged. "How are we supposed to train and become strong like the boss now?"

"It's got to be around here somewhere!" Konohamaru cried. I didn't throw it that far!"

"Here it is!" Udon sniffed, pointing at the knife, still embedded in the tree. It took all three mini-ninja to pull it out. Kakashi noticed, with no small sense of dread, that when it finally came free, a few fine silver hairs floated down to the forest floor. That had been a close call. Much too close…and it was only the first day of the week!

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Yes, a short chapter, but more will come soon. It's been coming out a bit differently than I'd first planned, so writing these chapters has been slower. I had to get something out so het won't be chucked at me, though. I swear there will be sex later on, but we have to get through some stress and some cliffhangers first! But trust me, guys. Is there anything in any of my other stories that even remotely suggests that I would let my characters be unhappy at the end? AKA coughKakashiisn'tgonnadiecough

Demonrubberducky

PS- It made me chuckle: my spell check kept trying to turn Gai gay. Tee hee. I consider that concrete evidence that all Naruto males are meant to be with other men!


	8. Chapter 8

AN: Sorry this chapter has taken a while. I kind of got stuck- this story hasn't been sticking to the plans I originally planned, so I've had to rethink its direction some. Also, I went back and read the last few chapters, and we're all just going to pretend that Kakashi pulled his mask down sometime before he kissed Iruka-he's a stealthy ninja, you know, and you wouldn't notice when exactly he did it anyways.

Anyways, if I don't update this next chapter hastily, it's either because I'm taking some time out to write a piece for a contest or because I might have, God forbid, actual school-work to do. Just know that I will not abandon any of my stories, because stories attack my brain until I write them out.

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The Curse:

Chapter 7

The week passed slowly for Kakashi. More than slow, really; the week passed Naruto-learning-a-lesson slow, Sasuke's-emotional-state slow, Gai's-progression-towards-normality slow. That's right, time seemed frozen.

The Copy Ninja suffered through many rigorous missions for the good of his village during this period. He not only slew the litter, but massacred the vermin that had manifested in the feudal lord's basement, obliterated the falling leaves that obstructed vital pathways, and rescued the ever-so-important Hokage's cousin-twice-removed's cat from an obviously fierce and vicious tree.

So, yeah, Kakashi was as bored as hell, caught in some horrible wormhole where seconds became hours, and he was still dodging life-threatening situations left and right. Somehow, during his mundane missions, Kakashi had almost been crushed by an Akimichi practicing a jutsu. He'd narrowly avoided being ripped apart by the Uchiha Sasuke Fan Club Junior Chapter (the mini-ninja had decided that Kakashi, having had contact with the adored and now unavailable Uchiha, had become a collector's item. Kakashi had escaped without using his Chidori, but only barely). The jounin was even falling out of trees and slipping when traveling along roofs. His battle-honed instincts kept him from getting anything worse than a few bruises, but the sheer clumsiness of it was humiliating.

The memory of Iruka's kisses haunted his mind, and was one of the two things that kept him going through the week. The second thing that made the week semi-survivable was Iruka himself. Although Kakashi had promised to keep his distance, Iruka wasn't so constrained. He snuck to Kakashi's apartment ever night and peeked in through the window. Kakashi could see that the chuunin was using stealth techniques, so even though he always noticed the other ninja's presence, he politely ignored him as if he hadn't. It wasn't anything new to Kakashi, the need to check on someone just to make sure they were still alive. It made the silver-haired jounin feel kind of warm knowing that the sensei was worried about him. 'I'll just have to reassure him properly when this week is over.' He'd think to himself every time he saw Iruka's brown hair flash past his window.

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If Kakashi hadn't been the elite, self-respecting ninja he was, he would have done a victory dance in the streets. It was finally the last day of the week, and he hadn't injured anything but his pride the whole time! Kakashi was a jounin, though, and much too dignified for dancing in the street, though- he dove into an abandoned alley before he started his jig.

"It's over! It's over! This shitty week is over! Iruka, here I come!" He shouted. Of course, he had to wait until midnight at least, but it was ten o'clock at night and he still needed to get himself cleaned up from his latest mission before he showed himself in front of Iruka.

And what had the elite ninja been doing? In yet another demeaning, genin-class task, the Man of a Thousand Jutsus had utilized his vast array of ninja skills to cater a barbeque for one of Konoha's prominent customers. There wasn't an inch of him that didn't smell like smoke, not a centimeter of his clothing that didn't have some sort of sauce spattered on it. Kakashi felt disgusting. At the moment, he was more main course than man.

"Two more hours." He consoled himself as he pulled out his keys and opened the door to his apartment. Iruka wouldn't be too angry at him for showing up in the middle of the night, he hoped. Surely the chuunin would understand. Kakashi had had a horrible, danger-filled week, and he just wanted it to be over.

As soon as he swung his door open, barbeque-covered Kakashi was ambushed his seven very-hungry nin-dogs.

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At exactly 12:01, Iruka was startled from his sleep by someone's fierce and very insistent pounding on his door. The chuunin glared at his door, yawned, and wrapped a robe around himself. He opened the door and found a disheveled Kakashi frozen in mid-knock.

"Uhhh, good-morning, Iruka-sensei!" Kakashi greeted sheepishly. Iruka stared.

"Fine weather we're having, huh?" Kakashi continued, to fill the silence. Iruka walked back into his house and flopped down onto his couch. Kakashi stood at the open door frame.

Iruka beckoned him to come inside as he yawned. Kakashi complied a little too eagerly, and Iruka winced when the older man slammed the door shut. He stood there, unsure of himself, until Iruka patted the cushion next to him. Iruka knew he shouldn't have invited him in, that the situation was too similar to Masaru, but Kakashi looked so lost and vulnerable standing there that sending him away would feel too much like kicking a puppy. The jounin joined him on the couch, sitting just far enough away that he wouldn't accidentally touch Iruka.

"What happened to you?" the chuunin wondered aloud as he noted the scratches and bite-marks on the Copy Ninja's arms.

"My nin-dogs thought I was dinner." Kakashi muttered. Iruka gave him a quizzical stare (or at least, as quizzical as one can get when one has just woken up).

"Why would they think that, Kakashi-san?" he asked.

" 'Cause I was covered in barbeque sauce." He mumbled. Iruka snorted with laughter.

"And why was that?" he asked between chuckles.

The explanation of The Week From Hell came unbidden from Kakashi. Somehow he found himself telling Iruka almost everything (he left out the near-death experiences, but that still left the boredom, the horrible missions, and the Uchiha fangirls). Iruka, still shaking with laughter, wrapped his arms around Kakashi and nuzzled his cheek up to the jounin's masked one.

"I'm sorry you had to put up with dull missions for me, Kakashi." He whispered. Kakashi started to protest, but must have seen the look in Iruka's eyes that told him the sensei knew very well why the Copy Ninja had been picking up trash and rescuing cats all week.

"And I'm sorry that you were attacked by fan-girls and nin-dogs."

"Wasn't so bad…" Kakashi murmured, because really, his whole week looked a lot better from his new vantage point. "I missed you, though."

Iruka didn't know what to say, so he buried his face into Kakashi's neck and just held him for a moment. The jounin didn't smell like barbeque, he noticed. His scent was clean and fresh, mostly from soap and shampoo, but there was something 'Kakashi-ish' about it that made it pleasant.

Kakashi's arms had found their way around Iruka. Iruka thought absently that Kakashi _shouldn't_ have his arms around him. No, no one had ever gotten hurt from just _cuddling_ with him. Cuddling was allowed. Iruka pulled Kakashi down on the couch so they could lie down and cuddle with greater ease.

Sometime amidst the aforementioned cuddling, Kakashi's hands found their way to Iruka's hair and pulled away the bothersome little tie that held the man's ponytail. 'No one's ever gotten hurt for just playing with my hair.' Iruka thought, leaning into Kakashi's touch and allowing him to continue threading his gloved fingers though his brown locks.

And if Kakashi hadn't lost any limbs from all that kissing they'd done before, surely one quick kiss wouldn't hurt things, right? Iruka let Kakashi lean in and press masked lips to his mouth. 'Masked kisses don't count.' He decided, and didn't protest when Kakashi lowered the offending black cloth for a real kiss. It was long and wet and left them both breathless. When it was done, in a demonstration of mighty self-control, Iruka shifted until his body was nestled into Kakashi's like a spoon, pulled the jounin's arms around him, and went to sleep.

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Kakashi stayed awake long after Iruka's breaths settled into the lethargic pattern of sleep. At first his pounding heart shooed away the sandman, but even after that quieted, he fought off sleep to watch Iruka. He should have been disappointed (all he'd gotten was one kiss!), but from where he was standing…lying, life looked really good. He drank in images of Iruka, bathed in moonlight, mouth slightly open, completely at ease, and he knew he wouldn't need his Sharingan to insure each one was etched into his mind. He didn't feel the least bit tired anymore, but he went to sleep eventually just so he could wake up next to Iruka in the morning.

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AN: Tis very, very short, I know! I'm sorry! But the chapters might be shorter than usual until I get this story back to the storyline I had planned. These last couple chapters have been short and slow because I honesty don't know what's going to happen with them when I sit down to write them. I'm ending this chapter here because it's a good stopping point, it's getting late for me who has an 8:00 class, and because I haven't decided what's happening next yet. That being said, if anyone was to offer a suggestion any time during this story, now would be a good time for it.

Demonrubberducky


	9. Chapter 9

AN: Here I am, apologizing once again for the long delay for this chapter. At first I was just having a busy week last week, with my first paper due and my first test. Then I was just being lazy for a while, and then I went through this little bout of depression because I figured out I'm asexual, so when I was supposed to be writing this, I was angsting on my livejournal. After that, I went home for the weekend, got the Cold from Hell, and have been sniffling and rasping ever since. However, for the first time in more than a week, I'm actually in the mood to write. And the good news is, it's time to start earning that 'M' rating! Cracks knuckles Let's get typing! WooT!

The Curse:

Chapter 8

Iruka woke up feeling much warmer than he usually did. He was more comfortable than he should have been for falling asleep on a couch, except for one minor discomfort. There was something hard digging into his back…

The chuunin turned his head slowly, lazily, just enough to catch sight of Kakashi's arms, which were still wrapped around him, feeding him their warmth. Iruka wiggled a bit, until he was facing Kakashi rather than having his back to the jounin. The Copy-nin's mask was still down, and the slight smile that rested on his sleeping mouth was so cute it made Iruka sigh. He gently brushed back the silver hair that fell across Kakashi's eyes, and wondered how he could feel so close to someone he hadn't even really known before that week. They were both fully dressed, but Iruka had the feeling that if he got any closer to the slumbering man, he would simply melt away into his skin.

Kakashi shifted in his sleep and the arms draped around Iruka's waist tightened, pulling him flush with Kakashi. The sensei felt the other man's warmth, his hardness, his breath, and for a moment, Iruka couldn't breath. He lay there, hypnotized by Kakashi's body, his own starting to respond. Then the moment was gone and Iruka was quickly and quietly untangling himself from Kakashi, desperate to get some sort of distance between them.

Breakfast. He had to make breakfast. What sort of host would he be if he didn't have breakfast waiting when his guest woke up? Iruka ignored the protests of his rapidly beating heart and the heat pooling low in his stomach and scrambled into his kitchen. This, he could do for Kakashi without the other man having to pay for it. One last act of kindness before he sent Kakashi out on his way. Then, Iruka would work on disappearing from the Copy Nin's life…forever.

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Kakashi woke up as Iruka shifted in his arms. He heard a soft sigh, and felt fingers toying with his fly-away hair. He didn't want to ruin the moment, so he kept his eyes closed and his breathing rhythmic. He let his arms tighten around Iruka, drawing him close enough to feel every contour of his body. For one brief moment, they just lay there, and Kakashi was sure that the week from Hell really had killed him and this was Heaven. Then Iruka remembered how to breathe and fled, leaving Kakashi feeling as if all the warmth had drained from his body.

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Iruka floated frantically around his little kitchen, still unable to think clearly. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a …reaction like the one he had now.

'It doesn't matter. I'm not going to act on it. I'm going to make breakfast, and then Kakashi-san is going to leave.' Iruka told himself firmly. He whipped out a frying pan and began to fry some strips of bacon. While they sizzled, he cracked up eggs and scrambled them together. He soon had a tasty western breakfast, complete with toast and orange juice, set out on the table. Then, with nothing left to distract him from thoughts of Kakashi, Iruka began to panic.

'What if Kakashi doesn't like western breakfast?' He wondered. He quickly started heating up rice and preparing a traditional breakfast for the Copy Nin.

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By the time Kakashi 'woke up' and wandered into the chuunin's kitchen, there was enough food on the table to feed a small army (or even two Narutos; the small piece of furniture groaned beneath the weight of the food it held). An adorably flustered Iruka looked up from the French toast he was cooking and blushed.

"I wasn't sure what you liked." He said quickly.

"Oh, I like everything here." Kakashi said. 'Including you.'

Iruka grabbed dishes out of the pantry so Kakashi could start serving himself, but noticed to his chagrin that there wasn't any room left on the table for a plate. Kakashi wasn't bothered, though. He simply tugged a plate out of Iruka's hand, piled his food on it (he was careful to take a little of each dish, so he could fully appreciate the sensei's wonderful culinary skills), and plopped down on the floor. Iruka finished up his French toast and followed suit.

Kakashi didn't know what to say to the sensei to reassure him, and Iruka couldn't figure out how to tell the jounin that this would be their last time spent together, so both men just ate their meal in silence.

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The appetites of two grown men only managed to put a small dent in the giant mass of food in Iruka's kitchen. Iruka resolved to invite Naruto over to finish it off, before realizing that the boy was gone.

"I wish Naruto was here." He mumbled to himself.

"Hmm?" Kakashi asked, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of toast with jelly.

"I said I wish Naruto was here. Then I wouldn't have to worry about all these leftovers." The chuunin gestured vaguely toward the table. Kakashi nodded.

"Yeah. It'd take one person a long time to finish off all that. Two people, though…" He trailed off hopefully.

And here it came. Iruka would have to give his 'this isn't going to work out' speech and send Kakashi away, and be lonely forever. The thought made him cringe. It had to be done though, for Kakashi's own good.

When he started off his speech, though, it didn't come out quite right…

"Kakashi?" It started off fine.

"Yes, Iruka?" Still fine.

"You've got something on your face." Wait, that wasn't how it was supposed to go! But Kakashi did. There was powdered sugar all across his lips and chin from the donuts Iruka had made. And it was very distracting, seeing the way the white contrasted the full redness of his lips and wondering how it would taste…

Kakashi attacked the mess with his napkin, but only served to spread the sweet powder around his face even more. Now there was a little dot of it on his pale nose.

"Oh, come here." Iruka said at last. He managed to locate a clean napkin on the table (a task that took quite a bit of ninja skill) and cleaned up Kakashi's face as if he were one of Iruka's littlest students.

The chuunin patiently wiped away the sugar on Kakashi's cheeks and nose. He cleared away the powder on Kakashi's chin. He even got past the top lip with no difficulty. The sensei's mistake was one that is prone to happen in sappy romance movies and cheap porn. As he brushed his napkin gently over the jounin's lower lip, he looked up straight into the Copy Nin's eyes. The same hypnosis that had come over him when he'd woken up trapped him as Kakashi caught his gaze. The napkin lowered of its own accord and Iruka's lips replaced it.

And yes, the powdered sugar _did_ taste sweeter on Kakashi's lips.

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Iruka didn't protest as Kakashi led him out of the kitchen and back onto the couch. The Copy Nin sat down and pulled the chuunin into his lap and captured another kiss. Their tongues tangled together and their hands roamed; Kakashi's mind, far from being angry at being ignored and deprived of blood and oxygen, did a little victory dance. Then Iruka shifted his weight a little to get a better angle, and Kakashi's mind died. Kakashi's other head, however, was alive and very much awake.

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With the Copy Ninja's cock digging into his groin, Iruka realized that this approach might not be the best way to convince Kakashi that there couldn't be anything between them. He pried his lips away from Kakashi and calmly explained the situation.

Or, he tried to. The kid gets kudos for trying, at least…

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Kakashi was aware on some basic level that Iruka was trying to tell him something, but it was so hard to concentrate on the words that the other man was whispering into his ear, and so easy to concentrate on the warm breath that ghosted with each word. Kakashi absently licked Iruka's neck.

Something warm and wet touched the side of his face, but not a good warm-and-wet something. It traveled down his cheek too fast to be anything other than a tear. The jounin turned to examine Iruka's face. The chuunin refused to meet his eye, and buried his tear-stained face in the crook of Kakashi's neck.

Kakashi extracted him and wiped a tear away with his thumb.

" 'M so sorry, Kakashi. I didn't mean for this to happen." Iruka sobbed. "I didn't mean to lead you on like this. I want this, but I can't, 'cause you'll get hurt. I'm sorry." He still refused to look into Kakashi's eye.

"What about what I think, Iruka?" Kakashi asked. He tilted Iruka's face until he finally captured Iruka's eyes. "What if I think you're worth getting hurt for?"

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Iruka blinked. It hadn't really occurred to him, that Kakashi should have a say in things. He knew the curse better than anyone but Iruka, which meant he knew full well the risks, but he still wanted to continue.

'He's made it through so far without consequence,' the quiet voice in his head whispered. 'This one might be different.'

Kakashi was a jounin, after all. Iruka hadn't ever dated anyone ranked higher than a chuunin. Jounins were tough; they could take a little abuse. Iruka decided that just kissing was okay.

"I wouldn't mind a few new scars anyways." Kakashi murmured when Iruka told him. "Good conversation starters."

Iruka pulled Kakashi into a kiss that found them lying down entangled on the couch before it was finished.

There was still the matter of Kakashi's arousal, and the effect that it was having on the chuunin. Iruka didn't want Kakashi hurt, but he couldn't just leave the man with a hard-on that was Iruka's fault. The silver-haired man had been so kind to him, so patient, (and he was so damned hot) that Iruka wanted to make him feel some of what he'd made Iruka feel. It didn't matter that Iruka himself get any release, but he did want to see Kakashi satisfied.

Iruka nuzzled into Kakashi's cheek.

" Kakashi?"

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Iruka was whispering his name. Kakashi stifled a groan. 'No!' he thought to himself, 'protesting time is over.' He detached himself from the sensei and prepared to launch into debate about why making out was a good thing (and better without constant interruptions).

Iruka silenced him with a single finger over his lips.

"Kakashi." He repeated. "You could deal with a broken foot, right?"

It should be noted that after witnessing Iruka's tears, Kakashi's brain had revived a bit to handle the situation. No more. Kakashi made the quick connection between broken foot-Masaru-blow job, and his brain exploded.

Had his penis been in possession of a brain, a mouth, and a set of vocal chords, it would have broken out into the Hallelujah Chorus. As impressive as Hatake Kakashi's manhood was, however, it lacked these certain features. With his brain gone and his cock without a voice, Kakashi had to make his reply non-verbally. An earth-shaking, mind-blowing, oxygen-depriving kiss seemed to do the trick. He leaned back to smirk at Iruka, but found himself staring at the ceiling.

A cold gust of wind brought his attention to the fact that his pants were missing. Well, they were missing in the sense of 'not where they were supposed to be', not 'lost', since he could see them in Iruka's hands and then on the floor. The chuunin kneeled between Kakashi's legs. 'Feisty little chuunin.' Kakashi thought to himself as he lifted his hips to allow easy removal of his boxers.

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Iruka knew he shouldn't be comparing his old lover with his new one, but he couldn't help recall how different it had been with Masaru beneath him instead of Kakashi. Masaru had been more vocal, but Kakashi's animalistic groans were arousing, and the Copy Nin had a taste that Iruka wanted to sample more of. He didn't want to say that Kakashi was _better_, but…well…

With Masaru, Iruka had done it to please his lover. Kakashi, though, with his moans and his taste and his writhing motions made Iruka want more. It didn't matter that the chuunin's cock was being neglected; making Kakashi react the way he did was satisfying in itself.

The sensei caressed the jounin's balls as he continued to lick up and down his length. Kakashi's hips rose as his back arched in pleasure, but Iruka just pushed him back down with his free hand. Precum leaked from Kakashi's slit, so Iruka licked it off and nibbled at the tip. Kakashi gasped something about Iruka and God.

'Yes I am.' Iruka thought with a smile. 'Good boy.' The chuunin braced Kakashi's hips with both hands and leaned down to give Kakashi his reward. Kakashi's entire length slid into Iruka's mouth and twitched with pleasure at the wet heat that enveloped it. It only took a few bobs of Iruka's head and a tiny bit of humming before Kakashi came in Iruka's mouth with an inarticulate groan.

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Kakashi sprawled bonelessly on the couch, thanking every person he could think of that he'd ended up here. There were his parents, for giving him life, Obito for rescuing him, Rin for her medical powers, his sensei, the Hokage, that guy who sold magazines on the street corner…

Wait. Iruka was getting up. That was a bad thing. Kakashi sprang up and caught his arm.

"Where are you going?" He asked. Iruka pointed down at Kakashi, who was still spattered with cum.

"I'm just getting a towel to get us cleaned up." He replied. Sure enough, he ran to his closet and returned a second later. Iruka wiped his mouth and then kneeled in front of Kakashi on the couch and cleaned off his limp cock. When everything was tidied up, he made to throw the towel over his shoulder, but Kakashi caught it.

"We'll need that to clean up after you." Kakashi told him sagely. The Copy Nin pulled Iruka up into his lap and unzipped his pants. Iruka jumped back as if he'd been burned.

"No!" He shouted, zipping himself back up with lightning speed. "We've tempted fate enough as it is. I'm fine. You should go now."

Kakashi wasn't a jounin for nothing; he transported himself behind Iruka and wrapped his arms around him before the younger man had time to protest.

"I don't want to go yet." He whined into Iruka's ear. "I want to take care of you."

"I can do it myself! You should leave. You can grab brunch on the way out." Iruka said, waving toward the door. Kakashi slid a hand down to Iruka's waist line and caressed the chuunin's stomach to distract him from the fact that he was working his pants open again.

"I don't have to use my mouth if you don't want me to. I can use my hands. Nobody's ever done that to you, have they?" He asked. Iruka shook his head.

"Then how do you know the curse applies to that? You've done it to yourself, haven't you, and you're still fine." Kakashi's fingers followed the trail of hair on Iruka's stomach downward. Iruka leaned back into Kakashi's embrace.

"And you know what?" Kakashi added mischievously, long after Iruka had surrendered to his touch. "We don't have to stop with just this, either. I've got another foot to spare."

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I'm back on track, almost. There should be about three more chapters, unless I combine them somehow, and an epilogue because I can't resist.


	10. Chapter 10

AN: I apologize for the delay. I've been suffering from a major lack of motivation these last few weeks, despite all the wonderful feedback I've gotten from you, my readers. I think after I finish this story, I'm going to take a little break from fanfics until my motivation comes back. I will finish this story, though.

On a more positive note, if you're into NaruSasu, (or if for some weird reason you want to read about my life), I have two NaruSasu one shots that can't be found on If you want to read those, they are available on ShinobiSex (http/ community .livejournal .com/ shinobisex/) or on my lj page, Demonrubberduck (http/ demonrubberduck .livejournal .com/) minus the spaces.

One more thing: I was planning on skipping some of the smut, but since so many of you wanted it continued, I'll try to throw in a little more.

The Curse

Chapter 9

Iruka hissed from the cold as Kakashi snaked his hand under the waistband of his boxers and seized him. Kakashi didn't know how his hands could be cold when his whole body was on fire, but then again Iruka's cock burned, so maybe they were. No matter; Kakashi would warm Iruka up soon enough.

The two shinobi were still standing in the middle of Iruka's living room, Kakashi firmly pressed to Iruka's back. The Copy Nin licked the chuunin's neck and led him back to the couch. He tossed the sensei on the couch and divested him of his pants and boxers while the younger man was still groaning for the loss of his touch. Then the jounin stripped him of his vest and shirt, so he could enjoy every inch of Iruka's skin. The hair-tie was tossed away too, just because.

Finding Iruka to be properly attired at last, Kakashi straddled him and began the arduous task of warming his hands on Iruka's heated flesh. He ran fingers through the chuunin's fine brown hair, rubbed circles around his hardening nipples, traced scars across his chest and lower. Finally, deciding his hands were sufficiently warm and Iruka had waited long enough, Kakashi lowered himself down between the sensei's legs. His hands wrapped around the base of the pulsing cock, and his tongue swept down to lick the tip.

Kakashi was doing this for Iruka, of course, but he had been expecting a positive reaction from the other man to spur him on. A moan or a gasp or a shout of "Oh, Kakashi, you're a SEX GOD!" would have been nice. Instead, the Man of a Thousand Jutsu found himself being wrenched away from Iruka's manhood. He looked up at Iruka, who was shaking his head.

Fine. No mouth. If it was hands Iruka wanted, it was hands Iruka would get. Kakashi formed a hand seal, and two kage bunshins appeared with a pop. The original Kakashi went back to work, massaging Iruka's cock with his hands and exploring his mouth with an adventurous tongue. The clones eagerly provided their extra hands to further pleasure Iruka, by squeezing his nipples, caressing his thighs, and just _touching_ him everywhere.

Now there were plenty of moans and gasps and other encouraging sounds for Kakashi. He smirked into Iruka's mouth as the other whispered urgently '_Don't ever stop this, I need you, don't stop!'_

'I don't plan on it.' Kakashi thought.

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When Kakashi left Iruka's apartment, well past noon, he was in a considerably better mood than he was when he'd entered. It might be attributed to the nap he'd taken (curled up around Iruka, both shinobi still panting from their activities), or the meal he'd eaten (a hearty brunch, reheated and still encompassing the entirety of Iruka's table), or the hot shower he'd grabbed in between (crowded with two people in the tiny stall, but still the best shower he'd ever had). Ok, knowing Kakashi, the mood was due entirely to the sex, but those other things sure didn't hurt matters…

It was one of those days, Kakashi decided, that you could honesty say you could die on with no regrets, perfectly happy. 'Except if _this_ is what I have to look forward to every day, then I'm not planning on dying any time soon.'

The silver-haired jounin headed straight for the mission room. He'd been out of commission all week, and Tsunade would probably be his personal slave-driver for the next month because of it. Not that Kakashi cared, of course. With Iruka's good-bye kiss still fresh on his lips, Kakashi was ready for any mission Konoha could throw at him; he was invincible.

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Iruka couldn't throw the feeling that people were staring at him as he walked down the street. Usually the people he knew would greet him, and the parents of his students would wave, but today it felt like everyone was turning around and looking at him, as if they _knew_ he just spent the morning committing indecent acts with one of the village's most infamous ninja.

What Iruka _didn't_ realize, though, was the reason people were staring. The chuunin was practically floating down the street, lips turned up in a face-splitting grin, skin almost glowing. As he went passed, the men would nod in salute of this man who most certainly had just gotten laid, while the women giggled to each other and squealed "Iruka-sensei's in love!"

"I wonder who it is?" They'd whisper to one another. On the other side of the village, signing the papers for a solo, A-rank mission, Kakashi sneezed.

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Iruka sighed as he filed his first bundle of papers at the mission room. He wanted to make dinner for Kakashi (because the jounin was frighteningly skinny, not just because he wanted an excuse to lure than man into his house so more ravishing could occur), but the Copy Nin had taken an A-ranked mission and wasn't expected back until the next day. Chuunin weren't usually privy to the going-ons of jounin, but Iruka was a Mission Room worker. Curiously enough, the paperwork for Kakashi's mission had been waiting at his desk when he'd arrived.

Iruka reassured himself that nobody _knew_, even if Tsunade-sama had peeked in when he'd arrived and giggled when she saw him smiling and glowing.

The day went by slowly. To pass the time between handing out missions and filing the paperwork (ninja seemed to come in flocks to get their assignments, so sometimes he'd be buried in work, other times he'd have nothing to do), Iruka read over the description for Kakashi's mission and mentally calculated when he'd be back. Maybe it was just Iruka's optimism speaking, but he thought the jounin would be back in time for lunch tomorrow. They could have a picnic, he decided. Yes, a picnic…somewhere secluded, where Kakashi could take off his mask and Iruka could steal kisses whenever he wanted to.

Iruka sighed again. Time was passing so slowly! He mentally packed his picnic basket…then repacked it…then decided on a new location…and made alternate plans in case it rained. Then he asked every poor shinobi and kunoichi that came through his line whether they thought it would rain tomorrow. As the answered, he'd glance longingly at the clock and sigh again.

"Damn it, Iruka, go home already!" Genma shouted after his fifteenth sigh. "If you do that ONE MORE TIME, I'm gonna snap!" Iruka looked up and blinked.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about, but if there's something bothering you, you don't have to hang out here. Unauthorized ninja generally aren't supposed to be here if they don't have a mission." Iruka pointed out.

"Arg! You don't even realize you're doing it! It's sickening!" Genma covered his face with his hands and shook his head, mumbling about damn love-sick chuunin.

"Worse than Kakashi." He muttered around his senbon.

Hearing the name, Iruka fell into daydream-mode again. "I wonder when he'll get back…" he whispered.

Genma groaned and fled the mission room, feeling like he'd been smothered in syrup.

(AN: you know, sickeningly sweet?)

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The mission Kakashi took was a pretty routine one: travel at devastating speed to an enemy country, evade countless poison-laced traps and high-ranking guards, steal the hidden scroll of secrets that was wired to self-destruct should it be jarred, and escape intact. Hardly worth his time.

Kakashi had chosen the mission because, out of the stack he'd chosen from, it was the only one that wasn't tediously time-consuming. If he did it right, he'd be back in Konoha by midnight. And oh did he have better things to do than steal scrolls! The new Icha Icha Movie was opening this weekend, and Kakashi had only five days to convince Iruka to go with him. They'd sit in the infamous back row of the darkened theatre and watch the movie and get inspired by its pornographic genius.

Looking back on it, Kakashi admitted that it would have been wise to pay a little more attention to the task at hand, rather than speculating on how many scenes he and his chuunin would get through before 'inspiration' struck.

The Copy Ninja had navigated through the mansion he was infiltrating and past its deadly traps on autopilot. Poised over the scroll, though, he'd overlooked the guard hidden in the shadows. His survival instincts were the only thing that kept him from taking a kunai through the eye. He dodged without conscious thought, which was all well and good until he set off the trip-wire there and sent a spray of poisoned senbon at himself. Being an elite jounin, he whipped out a kunai and deflected them, but they did cause a momentary delay that allowed the guard to escape and raise the alarm.

Kakashi grabbed the scroll and snatched it out of its booby-trapped case before if could explode. The scroll made it safely into Kakashi's waterproof vest pocket; Kakashi's hand, the one that had been holding the case, though, was badly scorched. He wouldn't be throwing any kunai from _that_ hand for a while.

As he was running out of the mansion (he made his own door, courtesy of _Chidori_, to escape his pursuers and also to spite them for hurting his hand and interrupting a perfectly good Iruka-fantasy; 'Redecorate THAT!' inner-Kakashi screamed), he stepped on one of the poisoned senbon, which skewered his sandal and pierced his foot. His foot immediately went numb. Kakashi kept running, albeit a little lopsidedly.

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Iruka rose from his chair and stretched. His shift was finally over! Iruka didn't care to go back to his empty house just yet, but he was still excited that the time had finally passed.

"I'm going to go shopping!" He declared, although the room was empty. Iruka had made a shopping list in his head while he'd waited for the last hour to creep by. He'd used up most of what he had in his refrigerator to make breakfast; if he planned on having a picnic ready for Kakashi when he got back from his mission, he needed ingredients. And maybe he'd buy a new shirt while he was out. The other teachers at the Academy were always telling him how nice he'd look in civilian clothes (especially when he came dressed in his uniform on Casual Fridays; he'd explained that he didn't own anything else, but they'd just ignored his protests). Something with buttons, he decided, stomach churning with anticipation of Kakashi unbuttoning it.

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Kakashi flopped down into a shrub to hide from his pursuers. They were lower level than he was, but they were persistent and numerous and not slowed down by poison like he was.

The jounin pulled a syringe from his vest and located an artery to push it into. The poison wasn't fatal; Kakashi had built up an immunity to most of the killing poisons, and carried the antidotes for the rest. This one was merely a tranquilizing poison. His leg was out of commission and he could feel the affects climbing upward still. It would have been better to stop sooner and counteract the drug, but like he said, the ninja chasing him were stubborn. It had taken him nearly an hour to gain enough of a lead to risk this small stop.

Ears with a dog's sensitive hearing detected movement, so Kakashi stowed away the empty needle and hoisted himself up, still resting most of his weight on his uninjured leg. He didn't have time to wait for the antidote to kick in. Kakashi channeled chakra into his good leg and gave an awkward hop that propelled him into the trees.

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Iruka curled up in his bed and tried to sleep. He had every reason to be tired; he'd spent the day in the mission room, dealing with chuunin and jounin, then he'd food-shopped and clothes-shopped, then he'd returned home and cleaned until midnight. Now Iruka's apartment sparkled. The groceries were neatly put away, the couch-cushions were clean again, and the bedroom was spotless, just in case someone might be seeing it.

The chuunin tossed and turned, waiting for sleep to come and make the time pass faster. When he finally dozed off, he dreamt of Kakashi, and a secluded picnic, and the new, red button-down shirt that hung on his closet door.

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In the darkness of the woods, where even the faint starlight couldn't penetrate, Kakashi ran toward Konoha, still limping heavily. His pursuers drew closer with every step.

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Yes, another short chapter, but this one comes accessorized with a cliff-hanger! Considering how short these chapters are coming out, there might be a few more chapters than I said before. I think right now, it's easier to do short chapters that are updated more often, as opposed to long chapters less frequently.

You know, looking back on my other stories, I don't know how I made my chapters so long. Looking back, I have chapters that are 12-14 pages, for like every chapter! Some of the chapters even get into the twenties! I don't know where that ability went…

Anyways, because this chapter is so short, I'll give you a teaser for the next chapter.

_Teaser:_

"_He's not back yet? But…he should have been back hours ago. You…you haven't heard anything…?"_

"_No, Iruka. We haven't heard anything. All we can do is wait." Tsunade said gently. _

"_I understand, Hokage-sama. Thank you for your time." Iruka bowed and fled Tsunade's office. He tried to close the door, but his hands were shaking too violently. He ran past the Mission Room, where a carefully-packed picnic basket was tucked beneath a desk, forgotten. It didn't matter; none of it mattered. His new shirt snagged on a nail and tore, but Iruka didn't slow down. It didn't matter. None of it mattered: not his plans for the day, not his tender hopes that _this time, it'd be different_, not his love that swept up so suddenly and unexpectedly every time someone said _his_ name. It didn't matter, because he'd done it again. Kakashi was dead- Iruka had killed him. _


	11. Chapter 11

The Curse

Chapter 10

There were no Academy classes for Iruka to teach the next day- his students were on a fieldtrip and didn't need his supervision, so he should have been able to sleep in until his afternoon Mission Room shift.

But for some logic-defying reason, Umino Iruka was awake at the ungodly hour of six AM. Yes, love makes us all do crazy, stupid things. Love was currently ordering Iruka to switch his much-envied afternoon shift to a sickeningly early shift. The lucky nin Iruka switched with skipped home happily and collapsed onto his futon for a few hours sleep, and the chuunin sensei took his place with a smile that shouldn't have been ANYWHERE at six o' clock in the morning. (AN: Your authoress is not a morning person. Can you tell?)

Those few shinobi that actually got up and signed out missions that early and the exhausted ninja returning from the field commented on Iruka's attire. It was the first time any of them had seen the chuunin in anything but his uniform or the black clothes of mourning. There was a general consensus that the young man looked rather nice in his black slacks and red button-down shirt.

"What's the occasion, sensei?" They asked.

Iruka would flush, scratch his head and smile. "Oh, nothing." He'd reply, though each time they asked, he'd push the picnic basket he'd packed a little further under his desk with his foot, making sure it was out of sight.

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At twelve o'clock on the spot, another chuunin arrived to take Iruka's place at the Mission desk.

"I'd like to finish up these reports." Iruka told him. "And if I'm going to be here anyways, there's no reason to keep you here. Why don't you go home for a while, and I'll send for you when I finish up?"

The chuunin was confused at Iruka's strange behavior, especially when coupled with his unusual dress, but decided the teacher must have a reason for wanting to get all his work done now (maybe a date? the chuunin wondered), so he accepted his good fortune of an unscheduled break.

"Are you sure you don't want to take a short break and get a bite to eat?" He asked, for even though he wanted the break, he'd feel guilty if Iruka went hungry.

"No, I'm sure this won't take me long, and I have plans for later." Iruka assured him, waving him on his way.

The chuunin went home. He figured he'd only have an hour at the most, so he decided to sharpen his kunai- it was one of those tedious jobs that kept getting put off. After every kunai was sharpened to a deadly point, he reorganized his scrolls, ironed his vest, and polished his hitai-ate.

The chuunin waited around for the message to come, but his shift came and went without him ever being summoned.

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"Iruka-sensei, your shift is over now. You can go home." Genma told the chuunin. The man's second replacement had been hovering for two minutes and Iruka hadn't noticed.

"But…it can't be time yet. He's not back. Are you sure that clock over there is right, Genma-san?" Iruka asked.

"Iruka, it's five o'clock. You've been here for more than ten hours. Go HOME!"

Iruka looked at the senbon-sucking jounin with eyes that brought to mind a deer in headlights. 'It can't be that late.' He murmured. But, as if to belie his words, Iruka's stomach rumbled, protesting that, yes, it had been that long.

"I need to speak with the Hokage." Iruka said in a daze. He stood up and left the Mission Desk without even filing his papers. His picnic basket lay in the shadows under the desk, abandoned.

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"Tsunade-sama, have you heard any news of Kakashi? I know you aren't supposed to reveal details about the mission, but I just need to know…" Iruka trailed off, hating how pathetic he sounded.

"All I know is that he hasn't returned yet, Iruka."

"He's not back yet? But…he should have been back hours ago. You…you haven't heard anything…?"

"No, Iruka. We haven't heard anything. All we can do is wait." Tsunade said gently.

"I understand, Hokage-sama. Thank you for your time." Iruka bowed and fled Tsunade's office. He tried to close the door, but his hands were shaking too violently. He ran past the Mission Room, where his carefully-packed picnic basket was tucked beneath a desk, forgotten. It didn't matter; none of it mattered. His new shirt snagged on a nail and tore, but Iruka didn't slow down. It didn't matter. None of it mattered: not his plans for the day, not his tender hopes that _this time, it'd be different_, not his love that swept up so suddenly and unexpectedly every time someone said his name. It didn't matter, because he'd done it again. Kakashi was dead- Iruka had killed him.

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(And just because people seemed so upset about the angst of the teaser, we will take a brief moment away from this serious moment. Everyone, breathe in…breathe out. Repeat, and enjoy this non-angst moment. Or, if angst is your thing, you're in luck! Just skip right down to the next break!)

"Hey, what's that?" Genma asked, spotting something in the shadows below the Mission Room desk.

"Probably just someone's papers." Asuma, who had just arrived to pick up a mission for his team, said.

"Oh, I wanna see!" Genma grabbed the handle of the basket and pulled it put into the open.

"A picnic basket?" Both jounin asked simultaneously.

"Picnic basket? Where?" Raido asked, popping his head into the room.

Genma held up the basket.

"It might be a trap." Raido warned.

"It might be Konoha property." The chuunin at the desk warned.

"It might be Iruka's, and you'll get your ass kicked by an angry chuunin if you open it." Anko warned, walking in and placing a mission report on the desk. "He's got a nasty temper."

"Or it could be full of delicious food!" Genma chirped, raising the lid to pear inside.

"It might be poisoned." Raido pointed out.

"It might be laced with laxatives." Asuma added.

"It might be really old." The chuunin warned.

"Or it might be Iruka's, in which case you'll get your ass kicked for eating it." Anko said.

The ninja all leaned forward to see what lay inside the basket. It looked like delicious food. They each took a deep breath. It smelled like fresh, delicious food. Every one of them snatched a tiny pinch of food and tasted. It tasted like delicious food.

"Yay! Free food!" Genma cheered, taking a bite of a rice-ball.

"It might be for us!" Raido added, chomping on a meat-bun.

"For all out hard work." Asuma decided, swiping nagiri from the basket.

"From the Hokage herself." The chuunin imagined, chewing a bite of tempura.

"Or it could be Iruka's, and you're gonna get your asses kicked." Anko warned, not touching the basket.

"Oh, look, dango!" Genma said, waving the dumpling around. Anko pounced on it.

"Yay, free food!" Anko cheered.

(Yes, utterly pointless, and it made me hungry writing it. Why did I write this then, you may ask? Because I can. Being the authoress rules!)

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Iruka's sparklingly clean apartment was too much for the chuunin to bear. Everywhere he looked reminded him of K-…him. The empty grocery bags from his shopping trip were still lying on his kitchen counter. His bed was neatly made, with his nice sheets instead of the raggedy old ones he usually used. Two towels hung in his bathroom, instead of the normal one.

There was only one place Iruka could find where Ka- his influence hadn't reached. Iruka crouched in the dark corner of his dusty closet and slid the door shut.

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Hours after he had administered the antidote to himself, Kakashi began to regain feeling in his leg. With feeling came the realization that he'd twisted it somewhere along the line as limped along, and pain shot up his injured limb with every step.

It was almost noon, and he should have been safely back in Konoha by now. Somehow, though, his routine mission had gone awry and he found himself running away from his village. He needed to find somewhere to make a stand, and if any of his pursuers escaped, he didn't want them associating him with Konoha. He'd taken precaution to disguise himself as a Sound Ninja before his mission, so he ran toward the border of Sound, knowing that he'd have to turn and fight soon or risk running straight into enemy territory.

Kakashi turned abruptly to face his pursuers. He let his hitai-ate fall away to expose his sharingan eye before charging.

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Oh, dear lord, I get shorter with each chapter. This one is supposed to be longer, but I'm tired and my head hurts, so I'll post this right now and write the rest tomorrow. Um, at least I can say it gets happier next chapter… much happier wink wink!


	12. Chapter 12

The Curse

Chapter 11

"AH, the BEAUTY of this SPRING day ABOUNDS on this Wondrous Landscape! Isn't it a JOY to be ALIVE and in the SPRINGTIME OF OUR YOUTH on such a GLORIOUS DAY!" A voice bellowed from a clearing in the forest.

"It's not spring, Gai, and it's cold and rainy." One sullen companion pointed out.

"And we're being devoured by these mosquitoes. There isn't a 'glorious' thing about this mission." Another added. The three ninja emerged, Maito Gai with great flourish (and incredible lighting, without even seeming to extend any effort), his two chuunin mission-mates staggering along behind him, glaring at the back of his bowl-cut head. Hey, they'd had to travel to the border of Sound at Gai-speed, so they were entitled.

"Not GLORIOUS! But can't you Smell the SCENT of BATTLE here? SWEAT caught up in this GENTLE Evening Breeze, it INSPIRES me to MANLY TEARS!" Manly tears indeed appeared in Gai's sparkling eyes. The chuunin groaned.

"That's just nasty, Gai! Get some deodorant, man!" They shouted.

The Beautiful Beast looked appalled. "You think that a mere JOG like that would be enough to make ME, Maito Gai, SWEAT? Oh, such is the NAIVEITY OF YOUTH!" Cue more manly tears.

The tears disappeared as abruptly as they had appeared, and Gai's (beautifully manly) face became deadly serious.

"There was a FIERCE and HEART-POUNDING BATTLE here, my Youthful Comrades. Observe these Footprints of the Attackers. Oh, HOW ARTFULLY they move. It's like a HIP and MODERN Dance!" Gai shook his hips to emphasize his point. His chuunin teammates would have been most upset by this, but they were following the tracks as well.

"This is amazing. It must have been eight against one."

"But there was obviously a great difference in skill. Look how this one guy was dancing around them. He moves exactly the way they do. Incredible!"

Gai's Youthful brain spun. 'HIP and MODERN'…'moves exactly the way they do'…

Gai followed the tracks of the man being attacked more closely. Yes, the form, the size, even the indentations that suggested the stance, they all matched his ETERNAL RIVAL. Kakashi couldn't have left his mark more clearly if he'd signed his signature underneath them.

The green spandex-clad jounin quickly cleaned the clearing of all traces of the battle and hurried along to where the tracks led. If it was indeed his Hip and Modern Rival, and he was using the Sharingan, there wasn't any time to lose.

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Nine bodies were soon turned up by the trio of Konoha ninja. There were dragged and lined up, side by side to be disposed of. The two chuunin uncorked their bottles of acid to start dissolving their faces, but Gai stopped them with a gesture.

"Something here is not as it Appears." He told them enigmatically. He walked down the line, past the eight dead Stone Nin and hovered over the ninth, a Sound Nin. He placed two Youthful fingers at the Nin's neck and counted slowly. At the last possible moment, he felt a weak pulse.

"This Persevering Paladin still lives." He said.

"Well, he's unconscious, and he won't be alive after this." One chuunin said, brandishing his bottle.

"If he's unconscious, he won't feel it." The other added.

Gai stared at the nin. It certainly didn't feel like a disguise, but his Finely Honed Instincts screamed that something about this Ninja was more than it appeared. He remembered the tracks. Gai leaned down over the Sound Nin and pried open his left eye-lid. Sure enough, the familiar blood-red Sharingan whirled beneath it.

"You won't be killing this Shinobi today." He proclaimed. He pulled the body away from the line of the dead and carried it to the chuunin.

"I need you to Dispel this Illusion. Those sorts of things have never been my Specialty."

The chuunin worked together to remove the high-powered illusion that enveloped the unconscious nin in Gai's arms. Once the disguise faded, Sharingan-no-Kakashi was left. Gai shifted him around until the pale jounin was on his back.

"I must Deliver my ETERNAL RIVAL to our FAIR AND ILLUSTRIOUS HOKAGE, BRAVE COMPANIONS! I will Trust you to Dispose of these Fallen Warriors! I will RETURN within the Hour, or I will climb the Highest Tree in Konoha, without chakra, using only my TOES!"

Two stunned chuunin waited until the cloud of dust that Gai had kicked up in his haste to clear. They blinked.

"…he's crazy." One finally said.

"Brilliant, but absolutely nuts." The other agreed. They set about their business, disposing of the corpses. As a precaution, they cast a dispelling jutsu on each before beginning. They had almost disposed of one high-ranking ally that day, thank you, and they weren't taking any risks.

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A little over an hour after she had spoken with Iruka, Tsunade wasn't surprised when Maito Gai came charging into her office when he was supposed to be on a infiltration mission in Sound; nothing about that man was capable of shocking her anymore. She simply accepted that there was no logic in the world when it came to Gai, and moved on. The thing that _did_ surprise her was slumped on Gai's back.

"Where'd you find the brat?" She asked. She didn't stop the important Hokage-business she'd been working on when Gai had burst in; she kept right on layering her second coat of ruby red nail polish.

"I located my Esteemed Rival along the border of that Accursed village of Sound. He fell after defeating Eight Enemies of that Nefarious Village of Stone." Gai gently set Kakashi down on Tsunade's desk and gazed anxiously at the clock.

"Thank you, Gai. You're dismissed." As soon as the words left her mouth, Gai shot out of her office. Once the whirlwind of papers died down, Tsunade capped her nail polish and examined the unconscious ninja.

"What have you gotten yourself into, brat?" She mused. There was a moment of silence, before Tsunade began channeling her chakra into the Copy Nin.

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Kakashi opened a single eye and groaned at the onslaught of light. Everything hurt. Damn, he must have gone and overused his Sharingan again. He tried to close his eye and go back to sleep.

"Oh no you don't! You damn well better have a good explanation for turning up half-dead two villages away from where you were supposed to be!" The voice was Tsunade's; no one else in the village would have the balls to shake him like that and yell in his ear when he was trying to sleep.

Kakashi groggily fumbled the pocket of his vest and produced the scroll he'd been sent to find. "Here, take it and leave me alone." He grumbled. He needed to sleep for a few days to replenish the energy Obito's eye had used. Tsunade, though, wasn't going to be that kind.

"WAKE UP!" She yelled.

"I'll write a mission report on it later." Kakashi whined, trying to block out the ear-shattering screams of his Hokage.

Tsunade switched tactics. "You need to wake up, brat. Iruka was in here earlier, asking about you. He'd probably worried out of his mind right now."

Kakashi shot up from Tsunade's desk, but slumped down again as his energy failed him. "Iruka…I've got to get to him."

Kakashi examined himself quickly. He couldn't let Iruka know how close he'd come to death. Tsunade had healed the scars from the fight, and the swelling in his leg had gone down, so the only signs of his injury were his burnt hand (neatly bandaged) and his sheer exhaustion.

"Here, brat." Tsunade said, handing him a chakra pill. "This will give you enough energy to get up and find him. I expect you to rest, though, and I want a full report on what went wrong tomorrow." Kakashi smiled at her gratefully and lowered his mask to pop the pill. Energy immediately filled his depleted body. The jounin hopped off of the desk and out the window.

Tsunade uncapped her nail polish and started on her third coat.

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Kakashi traversed the village with a speed that left his recovering body dizzy. He leaned up against the door of Iruka's apartment and waited for Konoha's bachelor apartments to stop spinning.

'Good. Now, time to ask Iruka to see the Icha Icha movie with me.' Kakashi knocked on the door, but no sexy chuunin appeared. The silver-haired man let himself in.

"Iruka?" Kakashi called quietly into the empty apartment. No one answered. Kakashi looked around. The apartment was cleaner than the last time he'd seen it, but he still couldn't locate the one thing he was looking for. He peered into each room. Nothing.

"Maybe he's out in the village somewhere…" Kakashi decided. He turned to leave.

"Mew." A tiny sound halted his movement. The jounin turned. Iruka's little nin-kitten crawled out from under his couch and jumped into Kakashi's arms. Something felt off about the small cat. It didn't have the chuunin's chakra signal on it. Iruka hadn't summoned the cat- the animal must have appeared on its own.

"Umm, cat? Can you tell me where Iruka is?" Kakashi asked. The kitten flicked its paw towards Iruka's linen closet, the disappeared. Kakashi crept up to it and slid the door open.

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Iruka wasn't sure how long he'd been sitting there in the darkness, but when someone opened the door and light came flooding through, it stung his eyes and blinded him for a moment.

"Iruka, what are you doing in there?" asked the silhouette standing at the doorframe.

"Kakashi?" Iruka hesitated.

"Yes, it's me." Kakashi affirmed.

Iruka pounced on him. "What happened? Why were you so late?" He asked, not ceasing for so troublesome a thing as air. "Are you hurt?" Before Kakashi had time to respond (read: lie), Iruka was checking him over.

Iruka was almost hysterical, and he didn't listen to Kakashi's response. Finally the older man shoved him away and pinned him against the wall.

"Iruka, I'm fine." He said slowly, letting the words penetrate the panicked haze Iruka had plunged into. "I had to take a slight detour on my mission, but I'm back now, and I'm not hurt." If Kakashi chose to leave out those hours that he had lain in enemy territory, unconscious and completely vulnerable to any sort of attack, he only did so to keep Iruka calm. Ok, maybe the part about Iruka not seeing him anymore if he showed signs of being cursed had a tiny bit to do with it…

Iruka's hands trailed up and down every inch of Kakashi's body, seeking out wounds that, thankfully, Tsunade had alleviated completely, and Kakashi just stood there until Iruka was satisfied. The chuunin's scrutiny lingered on the bandaged hand longer than anywhere else.

"What happened?" He asked quietly.

Kakashi's eye closed and went into his signature smile. "Just a little mishap with an exploding tag. Sorry, but I can't give you the details." Everyone in the village had routine mishaps with exploding tags. Iruka nodded, and released his hand.

"Mind telling me why you were hiding out in your closet?" Kakashi asked sternly. He wisely chose to keep all the 'in the closet' jokes floating around in his head to himself, and ended up sounding like a parent talking to a small child when he spoke to Iruka.

"I thought I'd-…I thought you weren't coming back." He finally admitted. Iruka looked down at his feet, off to the side, and anywhere else he could to avoid catching Kakashi's eye.

"Well, I'm back now, so there's nothing to worry about!" Kakashi declared. He started to brush the dust that was clinging to Iruka's clothing off of him (AN: lucky dust!).

"Iruka, what're you wearing?" He asked incredulously as he actually looked at what was under the dust-bunnies. Iruka looked down. His black pants were now dusty grey, and his shirt was wrinkled and torn.

"Sorry. 'must look awful." He mumbled.

"You look fuckable." Kakashi murmured. Iruka blushed.

"I-I just wanted to look nice for our picnic." He stammered.

"What picnic?" Kakashi asked, wondering how he could have forgotten something that would let him spend more time with Iruka.

"Ah, the-the one I planned while you were gone, for when you got back. I packed a basket and everything." Iruka told him. The chuunin sighed. "It was a dumb idea. I'm stupid for getting so upset."

"No, it's a great idea. We can go right now." Kakashi said, hoping to get rid of that forlorn expression on his chuunin's face.

"But, it's dark already. We can't go on a picnic in the dark!" Iruka protested.

"Why not. I'm hungry. Aren't you?" Iruka's stomach chose this opportune moment to growl hungrily. Kakashi smiled. "Let's go!"

Iruka's lips turned up in a shaky smile, which quickly dropped. "I left the basket in the mission room! There's no way it could have survived that long in there."

"We'll have to go see." Kakashi said, pulling Iruka out of his apartment and toward the mission room, ready to destroy anyone or anything that came between himself, Iruka, and their little outing.

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Anko dropped the final dango as she felt a murderous rage fill the room. 'Oh shit!' she thought. She thought about making a break for the window, but instinct warned her not to move and make a target of herself.

One pissed off Umino Iruka entered the room, followed by one angry Hatake Kakashi. Anko meeped. Before that moment she wasn't even aware that there was a verb 'to meep', but that was the only way she could describe the pathetic sound that broke from her throat.

"This isn't my fault, Iruka! I swear! These guys led me astray with dango! You know I can't resist dango! Please don't kill me!" She begged shamelessly.

"Genma made us do it!" Asuma wailed.

"He told us it was free food from the Hokage!" the mission room chuunin sobbed, terrified, and rightly so, for his life.

"We wouldn't have even touched it if Genma hadn't brought it out!" Raido tattled.

Genma screamed and ducked under the Mission Room desk. "I'll get you guys for this!" he yelled at his partners-in-crime.

Anko huddled into the corner and watched as Iruka descended upon Genma in his almighty fury. Kakashi walked over to the ravished picnic basket and quietly packed up the remnants of the food Iruka had lovingly prepared. It might have just been the overwhelming fear Anko felt at the moment, but she thought he looked a little pale, and he was definitely avoiding looking at the angry chuunin.

Then Iruka moved on to his next victim and Anko was too terrified to worry about anyone else in the room.

By the time the two left, half-empty basket in hand, each of the culprits bore a huge bump on their heads, an Iruka-foot sized sandal-print on their backsides, and emotional scarring that would given Ibiki an orgasm. They pulled out a spare scroll and signed a blood oath to never piss off Iruka again.

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"This has got to be the most pathetic date I've ever been on." Iruka whispered to Kakashi later on with a slight laugh. The jounin thought he detected the same hysterical tone as before.

"Hey, this isn't so bad." He whispered back. Yes, most of their food had been eaten by greedy jounin, so they'd had to grab some take-out ramen on the way, and yes, it was completely dark, with an overcast sky even blocking out the would-be romantic sight of the stars, and yes, Iruka was still wearing his torn, dust covered clothes and Kakashi his sweat-stained uniform. But none of that mattered when they were leaning against each other, sipping up their ramen, close enough for either to steal a kiss whenever he chose.

"No, maybe not. 'S not like I planned, though." Iruka said.

"Life usually isn't" Kakashi noted sagely. Iruka smacked his shoulder.

"Don't make fun of me!" He hissed. Kakashi chuckled.

"I don't think the others made it down to your dessert. Care for a slice of cake, Iruka?" Kakashi asked, pulling out the little cake that had somehow survived the gluttonous attack in the Mission Room.

Iruka leaned over and stole a bite of Kakashi's piece.

"Oh, you want MY cake?" Kakashi asked with an evil smirk. "Here!" He shoved the cake into Iruka's mouth, smearing icing all over his face in the process. Iruka retaliated by diving onto the jounin and using tickle-no-jutsu until the older man flipped them over and pinned his hands by his side.

"Mmrf!" Iruka said, voice still muffled by Kakashi's cake. He swallowed and tried again. "Bastard!"

"Why am I a bastard?" Kakashi asked smugly, liking the position he was in very much. Maybe even a little _too_ much, Tsunade's order of rest be damned.

"Because you're not ticklish."

"Everyone's ticklish somewhere. You just have to find the right spot." Kakashi proclaimed.

"So where's your tickle-spot, then?" Iruka challenged. Kakashi grinned and grabbed one of Iruka's free hands. He guided it down his body and left it resting between his legs.

"Right there. Go ahead, test it!" Kakashi prompted. Iruka jerked his hand free and smacked the jounin on the shoulder again.

"Pervert!" He yelled. His face turned red and his scar went pale, Kakashi noticed. He leaned down and licked away some of the frosting that was still smeared on the chuunin's cheeks.

"Well you can't expect me to just tell you my weakness, now can you? You're going to have to find it yourself if you really want to know where it is." Kakashi whispered.

"Fine!" Iruka hissed. The search commenced.

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Kakashi hadn't shown any signs of ticklishness on his stomach, but Iruka figured there was as good a place to start as any. He stripped the Copy Nin of his vest and shirt and trailed titillating fingers over washboard abs and around the trail of silver hair that started at a round belly-button. The teacher heard Kakashi's breathe catch, but he didn't think it had much to do with being ticklish. He ignored it and moved up the pale chest. He could feel the rapid thumping of a heart beneath his hands as he continued his search.

Iruka moved higher still. Tan fingers wrapped around a pale neck and caressed gently. The shinobi tensed as he felt hands in a chocking position, but forced himself to relax. Iruka rewarded him with a kiss and then nibbled on his ear lobe. Alas, though. Kakashi's neck did not hold the hidden tickle-spot that Iruka sought. The chuunin left a bite-mark in his wake, to teach that neck a lesson or two about not being ticklish.

As he contemplated his strategy, Iruka let his arms wrap around Kakashi and his hands trail casually up and down his back. Kakashi trembled.

A demonic glow lit up Iruka's eyes as he flipped Kakashi over and straddled his back. He paused for a moment, hands poised as if he were some great pianist about to play his masterpiece. Then Iruka descended upon him. Fingertips met muscled shoulders and inched down slowly. Kakashi twitched. When Iruka reached the jounin's shoulder blades, the copy nin began thrashing. At first Iruka thought he'd hurt the other man somehow, before he realized that those sobs for air were an attempt to keep the laughter in, and the bucking was desperate try to dislodge him. Iruka drew a tiny circle between the two shoulder blades with a single finger.

"Stop!" Kakashi gasped. He twitched again.

Iruka smirked. He licked the space where his finger had been just a moment before. Kakashi shuddered.

"Kakashi!" Iruka whispered into the other man's ear in a sing-song voice.

"Mmh?" Kakashi responded. Iruka was still touching his back, and it was hard to talk.

"I think I found it." Iruka grinned again. Kakashi's hands shot out and captured Iruka's wrists. The silver-haired man twisted around and Iruka found himself sitting in his lap, face to face.

"Does that mean I get to look for yours now?" Kakashi's voice was husky, and the unusual deepness of it made Iruka shiver. He nodded. A hand snuck under the cloth that covered Iruka's skin and a second later, a scandalized gasp filled the momentary silence.

"Kakashi! I don't think you're going to find my ticklish spot _there_!"

Kakashi nuzzled into Iruka's neck and shifted his hand. A second gasp punctuated Iruka's not-so-stern sounding scold.

"Hey, you said I could look." Kakashi pointed out. Iruka nodded again, and Kakashi continued his 'search'.

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AN: There will be a LEMON between this chapter and the next, which you can read on the KakaIru livejournal, Aarinfantasy, ShinobiSex (when I get around to posting this there), or you can get by e-mailing me (or asking in a review, I'm really not picky how I get the message, as long as it's gotten). Just a note, though. I HAVEN'T WRITTEN IT YET! SO DON'T E-MAIL ME UNTIL IT'S WRITTEN. I'LL LET YOU KNOW WHEN IT'S READY.I am going to get writing after I take a short break, but I've spent all day writing this chapter, and I have homework to do.

On a lighter note, writing Gai into this chapter made me happy. I usually never get to use my CAPSLOCK key, and I've kind of gone CAPS HAPPY!

Oh, and one more funny thing. Poor, prudish Microsoft Word doesn't seem to think fuckable is a word. Faceable is, however… Oh, the strange things spell-check would do to my stories if I let it go free… Maybe I should get myself a beta, if my spell-check is that unreliable.

PS- I didn't get any reviews for chapter 11. Yes, it was short and full of crack, but that's still mean! Grrrr. There, I growled at you. Consider yourselves punished.


	13. Chapter 13

Ok guys. I have to say, I love all of you, and I apologize for growling at you last chapter for not reviewing. Fanfic was being evil, like is has been for the last couple of days while I've been trying to post **this** chapter. The lemon is written, and is posted on the Aarinfantasy forum under the user name llama63, on the livejournal groups KakaIru and Shinobisex. If you don't frequent any of these sites (although you might want to, because they are all great), you can e-mail me (my e-mail addy is in my profile. I'd write it here, but fanfic always messes them up anyways) or just leave a message in a review. I know some people have already done this, but do me a favor and tell me again, because I don't want to send it out a bunch of times if you've already read it. I get confused easily. Bare with me. Thanks for all the feedback you've given me.

Also, **americanXminority**, you want to know about ShinobiSex? I'm glad you asked. It's a livejournal community created by the wonderful Scribbles in the margins, and is devoted to the adult pairings of the Naruto world, be it yaoi, yuri, het, threesomes, or whatever else you can imagine.

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The Curse

Chapter 12

Iruka's dream world was a simple, happy place, filled with dream-Kakashis and shared body heat. Dream-Kakashi was leaning forward to give him a kiss just as the shrill cry of his alarm clock shattered the dream world. Iruka woke up with instant speed that had been drilled into him since his academy days.

Not surprisingly, Kakashi was still in his bed. A little surprisingly, Kakashi had his arms twisted around Iruka in a vice-like grip (Iruka never guessed he was a cuddler…). Most surprisingly, though, was the fact that the jounin was still asleep. A noise that loud should have been enough to wake up a jounin three apartments down (luckily, Iruka lived in chuunin-only apartments), yet Kakashi slumbered on, lost in his own little dream-world filled with dream-Irukas, shared body heat, and sage talking Icha Icha novels telling them all kinds of ways to keep themselves entertained.

As fun as watching the Copy-Nin sleep was, Iruka had his alarm set for a reason. There were small, impressionable killers-to-be waiting for his unlimited guidance at the Academy. Iruka sighed and began wiggling out of Kakashi's embrace, using many of the strategies he'd been taught for escaping. The chuunin was almost free when Kakashi shifted, wrapped his arms around Iruka again, and opened his eye.

"Morning." He croaked.

"Morning. Sorry if I woke you." Iruka said, even as he shifted around to escape once more.

"S'okay. Good way to wake up, with you wiggling against me." The half-awake jounin mumbled. It took him a moment to notice his arms were empty and the man previously serving as his personal heater was missing. He lifted his head and glanced around, confused.

Iruka was across the room, stripping out of his clothes and heading for the shower. Kakashi debated for a moment, warm-bed-sleep or warm-shower-Iruka, and decided that getting up at the ungodly hour of 7:00 was justified. He tossed back the covers of Iruka's bed and made it as far as sitting up before he collapsed again. 'Ah, that's right. Near death experience.' Kakashi decided, much against his desires, that his shower was going to have to wait until a little more of his depleted chakra was restored. He fought his instinct to fall right back to sleep, though, and was rewarded a few minutes later with the reappearance of naked-Iruka, who was drying his dripping hair with a towel and scrambling around the room looking for a clean uniform.

"Where're you going?" Kakashi asked, and was repaid with the full sight of Iruka, who turned around to face Kakashi as he answered.

"I've got to go to work. You're welcome to stay here and sleep for a while if you're still tired from your mission." Iruka offered. Kakashi thought that was a kind thought, especially since he'd planned on doing that anyways, with permission or without.

"Work's for quitters. Stay here?" Perhaps the product of too much time spent with his nin-dogs, Kakashi knew how to beg, and beg shamelessly. He even threw in a whimper or two for effect.

Alas, perhaps the product of too much time spent with small children, Iruka was immune to shameless begging and simply ignored Kakashi's request. He dressed, pulled his hair into his usual pony-tail, and walked back over to his bed.

"Will you meet me after my shift in the mission room? We can eat dinner together, or catch a movie, or something?" Iruka asked. Kakashi nodded.

"Oh, I know a movie we should see! It doesn't come out for another week, though." Kakashi said, fantasizing once again about the back-row of the theatre with the Icha Icha Movie playing on the screen.

"Sure. We can pick up tickets for it while we're out." Kakashi's smile was so big it hurt his cheekbones. The smile was infectious; and soon, Iruka was standing there grinning like a fool as well.

"I've got to go now." The chuunin said with a sigh. He leaned down and braved the horrors of morning breath to give his lover a quick kiss.

Kakashi leaned back on his pillow in a daze as Iruka left the room. He listened distractedly as the chuunin shuffled around in the kitchen for a few moments, opened and shut his closet door, and finally left the apartment. The jounin fell back asleep and dreamt of Iruka, shared body heat, and the Icha Icha movie. And, for the first time, Kakashi's dreams were becoming reality.

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As soon as Iruka's body was fully past the door frame of the Academy, his fellow teachers jumped on him like a pack of ravenous, gossiping wolves.

"Iruka, you liar, how could you not have told us about this?" They shouted.

"About what?" He asked, getting that nagging little feeling that he wasn't going to like this.

"About how three days ago, Kakashi arrived at your apartment under cover of darkness!" One of his colleagues shouted.

"Or about how two days ago, you were skipping around like a love-sick puppy!" Another added.

"Or about how yesterday, you and one Hatake Kakashi were seen entering the mission room together and coming out together with a picnic basket, not to be seen for the duration of the day." A third member of the Konoha teaching force noted.

"Or about how Kakashi was _never_ seen returning to his apartment last night, hmm? Care to tell us, Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka stood there for a moment, wondering if it was going to be possible to even open his mouth without burying himself any deeper.

"Well…" he started out. The other teachers craned their necks closer to hear.

"I'VEREALLYGOTTOGOTEACHNOW!" He shouted, and ran to his classroom. He was so lucky, to have all those innocent youths to use as human shields against awkward questioning.

When he reached his classroom, thirty pairs of wide eyes were staring at him, ready to learn how best to maim, kill, sneak, and steal. Iruka thanked god for such pure, innocent students.

"How was your field-trip yesterday, children?" He asked as he pulled out graded quizzes from his bag and began passing them back to their corresponding students.

"It was fun, Iruka-sensei." Thirty voices chimed.

The quizzes were passed back, and Iruka started writing the answers on the chalkboard when he heard shuffling behind him. The chuunin turned to find Konohamaru squirming around in a way that told Iruka he either needed to pee or he had a question he really wanted to ask.

"Yes, Konohamaru?" He asked.

"Iruka-sensei…what's 'laid'?" Konohamaru questioned innocently. The other students echoed him.

"Yes, Iruka-sensei, what does it mean?"

Iruka blinked. His mouth opened and snapped closed. "I…um…why do you want to know?" He asked, fervently praying that they meant the past tense of 'to lay', as in the object of a sentence resting in one place, rather than what he thought they were asking.

"My daddy said you 'got laid' yesterday, Iruka-sensei." Konohamaru explained. The other students nodded their agreement. Iruka wondered when parents would realize that the first thing their children did with the stealth techniques they learned was eavesdrop on other people's conversations.

"So what's 'got laid'?" Konohamaru persisted.

"Does it hurt?" Moegi asked, seeming concerned.

Iruka wondered how many years his students would spend in therapy if he were to commit ritual suicide in front of them. His face felt like it was on fire, and only the thought of his date with Kakashi gave him the strength to answer.

"It means to take a nap." Iruka lied. "Now, would someone like to explain answer number one on the quiz? Over half of the class missed this question, so we need to go over it before the test…"

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Around the much more acceptable hour of noon, as Iruka was sending his students out to recess and hiding from his nosy peers, Kakashi finally woke up with enough chakra to get out of bed. He stumbled straight into Iruka's shower, where he stayed for a good twenty minutes, just letting the steamy water refresh him. When the water started getting cold, he quickly washed and got out, and fought the urge to collapse on the bed again. It usually took a week for him to recover from too much Sharingan use, and he thought he was doing pretty well to be on his feet.

Kakashi really didn't relish the thought of putting his filthy uniform back on; so he borrowed clothes from Iruka, which aside from being a little short fit quite well. Although the effort was tiring and Kakashi had never understood the logic behind the ritual, he made Iruka's bed, just to be polite (though, really, he thought the idea behind it was dumb, since the bed was just going to be unmade that night when Iruka went to bed). The jounin trudged into the kitchen. A bowl of rice, now cold, stood on the counter, along with a pair of chopsticks. Kakashi reheated the rice and devoured it in two bites. He'd have to thank Iruka for that later; he really hadn't felt up to making breakfast right then, and the food was already giving him new energy.

Kakashi stopped by his apartment and put his dirty uniform in the wash, before heading out to the Memorial Stone to chat with Obito and his sensei. He hadn't had something like this to tell them for a long time; and knowing them, they'd want all the gritty little details, those pervs!

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Iruka stayed disguised as a desk until the last of his students filed back into the classroom after recess. Predictably, the other teachers had launched an attack on him as soon as the children had been released; but Iruka had foreseen their actions and hidden himself to avoid their gossip mongering. If the children thought it strange that their teacher had henged into a piece of furniture, they wisely chose not to comment on it.

The last few hours of class went relatively smoothly. Iruka reviewed the material for the test (Chapter 10 'What Can Be a Weapon: Using Your Surrounding Wisely' through Chapter 13 'Great Escapes: Part 1'), and the students practiced throwing shuriken for the last half hour. It wasn't until they were packing up to leave that the relative calm Iruka had built up was shattered.

"What are you doing this afternoon, Moegi?" Konohamaru asked as he headed out the door.

"I have to go to my cousin's birthday party this evening, so I think my mom's gonna make me get laid." She responded, obviously eager to use the newly discovered term.

"Yeah, I'm kinda tired." Udon sniffed. "I might get laid too."

Iruka waited until his students were gone before he started banging his head against the wall. 'Thirty teacher-student conferences.' He calculated mentally. 'That means thirty separate headaches, thirty half-hours of my life wasted trying to explain why their children want to get laid.' Iruka groaned. His head was mid-impact when the other teachers descended upon him.

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After Kakashi had his daily talk with Obito and Yondaime, he wrote up his mission report. It took him about an hour, for a couple of reasons. First off, Tsunade herself was probably going to be reading it, wanting to know how he could have screwed up so badly, and secondly because his mind wasn't very helpful in supplying non-perverted ways of saying "I wasn't paying attention because I was too busy thinking about how to get into Iruka's pants." There just wasn't a way he could phrase it so it wouldn't become the juiciest piece of gossip for the week.

When he finally finished the report, he found himself bored out of his mind. He needed a way to pass the time until Iruka finished up his shift, but he was too tired to do anything. He decided he might as well turn in his Mission Report and get Tsunade's scolding out of the way. Maybe he could even pick up a D ranked mission, just so he'd have something to do.

"Sorry, Hatake-san, I'm afraid the Hokage has…stepped out for the moment." The chuunin at Tsunade's office told him. Kakashi jumped as he heard Shizune's shouting from the next room.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LET HER ESCAPE? I TOLD YOU, SHE IS NOT ALLOWED OUT UNTIL THESE PAPERS GET SIGNED! FIND HER **NOW**, UNLESS YOU WANT HER GAMBLING DEBTS COMING OUT OF YOUR PAYCHECK!"

The chuunin at the desk didn't flinch at the commotion. Kakashi placed his report on the desk carefully, scared to make a sound and risk incurring Shizune's wrath.

"I'm going to go get a mission now." Kakashi whispered.

"What sort of mission would you like today, Hatake-san?" The chuunin asked.

"Something short. I need to be finished by dinner time." Kakashi said. There was bound to be a short mission in the pile, and certainly a couple easy ones at least; however, the probability that there was a short, easy one was considerably less. Between the two choices, Kakashi would rather risk a difficult mission than miss out on his date with Iruka.

"Here, a C-rank escort mission. The feudal lord is entertaining some envoys and wants some shinobi bodyguard as a show of power. It's not going to be terribly exciting, but you'll be finished by five. Sound ok?" he chuunin asked.

Kakashi signed the mission out. "Sounds perfect." Sure, he was exhausted and in no condition to be accepting missions, but this mission was so easy, what could go wrong?

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As it happened, Iruka ended up arriving at the Mission Room ten minutes after the start of his shift because of the surprise inquisition by his fellow teachers, and missed Kakashi by a matter of minutes. He apologized sheepishly for being late.

"It's fine, Iruka-sensei. You missed your boy, though. Hey, speaking of which, Tsunade-sama is going to want to see this when she gets back-"

"Did she sneak out again?" Iruka interrupted, wincing.

"Yep!"

"Is Shizune-san angry?"

"Yes. You might want to stay away from her office for a while. Make sure you get this report to the Hokage, though."

"Will do." The Mission Room chuunin gathered her things and left, leaving Iruka in the empty room with the report. Iruka looked at it once, before deliberately putting his bag on top of it. Mission Reports were confidential…his job was to file them, organize them, not read them for pleasure. He busied himself with paperwork until the afternoon rush of ninja came in to get their mission assignments. It wasn't until his shift was nearly over that a lull came and the report began to tempt him. With a great show of resolve, he filed the new stack of papers that had piled up. It was his efficiency that undid him, though. If he had worked slowly and dragged out the task until the end of his shift, the report would've been safely passed on to the next chuunin with instructions to give it to the still-missing Hokage. As it happened, the busy work was finished in less than ten minutes, and Iruka sat there in the empty room, looking everywhere but at the report.

Three minutes later, Iruka was reading through Kakashi's mission report. Halfway through, he stopped and looked around. He gave a forced chuckle. "Real funny, guys. The joke's over now." But none of Iruka's prankster friends came out. Iruka scanned the report and found Kakashi's signature at the bottom. It wasn't a forgery.

"THAT BASTARD! I'M GONNA KILL HIM!" He shouted. The chuunin shoved the report into his vest pocket and stormed out of the mission room five minutes before his shift ended.

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While Iruka was issuing missions, Kakashi was standing behind the feudal lord, watching the envoys munch on hors d'oeuvres. He had been watching the envoys munch on hors d'oeuvres for a solid hour. The worst part was, this mission was all about appearances, so he couldn't even read his beloved book to pass the time.

It was inevitable; really, that his thoughts would begin to wander, and that they would eventually stop on Iruka. He wondered if the chuunin could be convinced to go to the midnight premier showing of the Icha Icha movie in costume. Oh, he could go as the scantily-clad nurse from volume one, or the scantily-clad student teacher from volume two, or even the scantily-clad swim-suit model from volume three.

There was a flash of silver at the edge of his vision, but he told himself it was a fork and focused on laying out his argument to Iruka. It was practically a crime for the teacher to hide that ass of his.

The 'fork' wasn't heading anywhere near the food; and Kakashi's ninja instincts, unlike the rest of him, weren't slacking off. When the silver flash got too close to the lord, he moved before he was even aware, putting himself between the client and the threat.

The 'envoys' dropped their transformation jutsus, and Kakashi recognized at least two of them from the Bingo Book. Shit. Kakashi blocked the kunai that was flying toward the feudal lord and threw down a smoke bomb. Under the cover the smoke provided, the jounin grabbed the lord and transported him with a jutsu. The Copy Nin didn't have enough chakra to get both of them away, so he sent the feudal lord to the Hokage's office and prepared to hold the assassins off until reinforcements arrived.

One of the enemies used a wind jutsu to clear away the smoke. As the last of the cover faded, Kakashi summoned the dregs of his chakra and formed an illusion of the feudal lord. Hopefully, if they didn't realize their target was gone, they'd stay long enough for more Konoha shinobi to arrive and capture them.

No such luck. "You think we'd fall for a genin-level trick like that, Copy-Ninja? Show us what you've really got!" They taunted. Well, at least they didn't know he didn't have the strength to form a decent clone. If he could only bluff until help arrived…

A shuriken buried itself deep in his shoulder. He hoped the feudal lord would know to tell the ninja at the Hokage's office about this and send reinforcements. Kakashi would've given anything for enough chakra to summon even one nin dog to send out, just in case. He threw kunai and shuriken in every direction, because the energy he'd spent on his last two jutsus had left his vision swimming.

He sensed rather than saw the ninja sneaking up behind him, and shoved a kunai through his stomach. His weary mind giggled, 'The way to a man's heart is through his stomach,' as he twisted the knife up and under the man's rib-cage.

Failure wasn't an option. These ninja may have the advantage of surprise, numbers, and energy level; but Kakashi had a date with a chuunin schoolteacher, damnit! He pulled his kunai out of the dead shinobi and turned to face the rest.

'What would Iruka think of me if he could see this?' He wondered as he rushed the assassins. He knew how he must look, streaked with blood, like a fierce killer rather than a slacker. He imagined the frown that would appear on the chuunin's face if Kakashi picked him up for their date covered with enemy blood. The foot that kicked out at his legs from behind came as a shock. Kakashi fell, still fighting the ninja that swarmed over him.

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Next chapter: Kakashi gets his ass kicked, Tsunade appears, and the Curse is revealed! It should be the last chapter; but there will be an epilogue and maybe a short side story about the Icha Icha movie premiere, if ya'll readers would like to read about that.

Also, I'm starting to think about my next story. I'm probably gonna write another Kakairu, but there are two different directions I might go in. You might have noticed my writing has teetered between humor and angst for a while now. Your next choices focus on these two. One would be a death fic, with multiple endings of various angst levels. Choice number two is a response to the challenge I issued on KakaIru (that no one had responded to yet, and I'm not patient enough to wait), featuring Kakashi, Iruka, and Jiraiya on a mission together, and would eventually involve Sexy no jutsu and maybe a bit of KakaIru yuri. Go figure. Actually, there might be a third choice, but it would leave the realm of Kakairu Gasp! It would be a Kabuto/Iruka fic, very dark. Why? Because Iruka gets paired with the other silver-haired men from the Naruto universe, yet I'm not aware of anyone exploring this pairing yet. I don't know. Review, and tell me what you'd be interested in reading.


	14. Chapter 14

Hey everyone! We're getting toward the end now, so get excited!

This chapter is once again betad by chibinecco, and since I haven't mentioned it for a few chapters, this fic is written in response to a challenge issued by IcySapphire15. I didn't know this would turn out so long when I started it...maybe I should stick to one-shots when it comes to challenges. Nah! I enjoy writing, and I enjoy reading your reviews and seeing how much everyone else gets in to my stories.

The Curse

Chapter 13

The feudal lord that Kakashi had been guarding was feeling confused and disoriented, and with good reason. He'd woken up that morning planning on having a diplomatic afternoon entertaining foreign envoys and impressing them with the high level shinobi he hired and the fine foods he was serving. Instead, halfway through the caviar, the poor lord found a kunai hurtling toward his face, his shinobi bodyguard leaping on him under cover of smoke, and then…he suddenly wasn't where he'd been a moment before.

As the man looked around, he vaguely recognized his surroundings as the office of Konoha's Hokage, where he'd stood yesterday as he placed his request for a high class body guard. The Hokage was no where in sight, unless she was somehow hiding behind the huge stack of papers on her desk. Considering her disposition, he doubted that.

"Tsunade-Saaaaama!" A shrill voice screeched in the hallway outside the office. "Tsunade-sama, you must finish these papers today!"

The feudal lord heard a set of footsteps, and soon a second voice joined the first.

"Shizune-san, I've been looking for you."

"Iruka-sensei, good afternoon. You haven't seen Tsunade-sama anywhere today, have you? It's imperative these papers get signed today."

"No, I'm afraid not. I need to borrow Tonton, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

"No trouble. Why do you need her?"

"So I can track down Kakashi and kick his ass." The feudal lord shuddered at the demonic tone the young man's voice adopted.

"That's a wonderful idea, Iruka-sensei!" The woman gasped. "I can hunt down Tsunade-sama and lock her in her office with no food or drink until she finishes her work!" The feudal lord had always thought of the Hokage's quiet assistant as sweet and innocent, but oh, how wrong it seemed he had been! The woman had just _cackled_.

He backed away from the door, the attack at the banquet completely forgotten. So focused was he on staying quiet and out of the sight of the two evil voices outside the room that he jumped when something stirred under the paper-laden desk.

"Tonton! Oh Tooooonton! Come to Aunty Shizune!" The terrifying voice crooned.

"Pui pui." The shadowy shape under the desk whimpered. A little pig dressed in a vest and a beaded necklace emerged and hid itself behind the feudal lord.

"Did you here that, Shizune-san?"

"It came from the office!"

The footsteps neared the room, and both pig and feudal lord shivered. The swine nudged against the man's leg, trying to bury itself inside for safety. The door slid open.

The two ninja froze as they spotted the man in the room.

"Daimyo-sama, what are you doing here?" Shizune asked.

Oh, right. There was a reason he was here.

"My banquet was attacked! The silver-haired shinobi protecting me sent me here. I think if we're going to capture any of them for interrogation, you'll need to send backup. Some of the ones attacking me were high le-"

"Silver-haired? Kakashi? Was the man protecting you Hatake Kakashi?" The male ninja interrupted him in a panic.

"Yes, I believe so. The Copy Ninja, he said he was." The feudal lord answered. These Konoha Ninja needed to learn their places. Terrifying voices or not, interrupting the daimyo was just not acceptable!

"Shit! He's in no condition to be fighting. Shizune, we have to help him!" The man shouted, already halfway out of the room.

The assistant nodded and turned to the flustered feudal lord. "You stay here, Daimyo-sama. You'll be safe until we return." She bowed, and then, surprisingly enough, turned to the pig behind him.

"Tonton, find Tsunade-sama, and bring her to where we are. Ok? It's very important." The pig grunted and pattered off on its stubby little legs. The assistant left the office without another word. The feudal lord paced around the room a couple of times, wondering if things were always this hectic in the life of a ninja.

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Kakashi didn't try to go about his life with a pessimistic attitude or anything, but he couldn't help but think, as he was battling for his life while lying face-up on the floor of the banquet hall, that the feudal lord wasn't going to send him any of the reinforcements he'd been counting on. He had already lost enough blood to make his vision swim at the most inconvenient times, and he'd only managed to kill two of the six ninja attacking him. Hatake Kakashi's situation didn't look good.

The bastards had noticed that no help seemed to be on its way and were playing it safe with him. They attacked him head to head only when he tried to stand up; otherwise, they hung back and bombarded him with projectiles.

The jounin swore as three shuriken dug into his leg. Immediately assessing the damage, he dismissed two as 'vaguely concerning'. The third, however, was near his ankle, and from the vast amount of blood he felt flowing from the wound, he could guess the last throwing star had struck an artery without even looking down at his foot.

Not good. In his ears was the high-pitch ringing that harbingers fainting.

'You can't faint, Hatake!' Kakashi's befuddled mind protested. 'Think of what Iruka would say if he found out you fainted in the middle of a mission!'

Kakashi blocked the next round of missiles on autopilot, thinking of the teasing the chuunin would have if the infamous Copy Nin were to be brought down by so simple a thing as blood loss.

"Kakashi, you bastard! If you die on me, I'll kill you!" He heard Iruka's voice shout.

'No, that's not what he'd say…' Kakashi thought to himself.

"DAMN YOU, Hatake, listen to me when I'm speaking to you!" Iruka's yelled again. Kakashi looked up, and Iruka's blurry face floated in and out of focus.

"Iruka?" He asked, bewildered. "Is it time for our date already?"

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Umino Iruka might have only been a chuunin schoolteacher named after a friendly marine mammal, but one wouldn't believe it if one were present in the banquet hall.

That old saying, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"…it's in need of replacement. Hell hath a fury like that. From that day forth, the saying was changed to "Hell hath no fury like an Iruka enraged".

The chuunin descended upon the enemy nin with speed and strength never witnessed before or since. His wrath paused only to berate his nearly unconscious lover every few minutes, threatening him with pain, dismemberment, and Shania Twain concerts should the unfortunate man die without Iruka's permission.

Shizune had rushed after Iruka in order to help him deal with the threat, but she could easily see she wasn't needed. She left the fighting to whatever tailed demon had possessed Iruka and hurried over to the injured jounin on the floor.

"Isn't he great?" Kakashi seemed to be trying to follow Iruka with his eye but gave up and looked up at her dizzily. "I think I've figured it out." He muttered wearily, before his head fell back and his eye snapped shut.

"This isn't good." She mumbled to herself as she looked the former ANBU over. She whispered her assessment as she began to bandage the man, a force of habit from the days spent training under Tsunade.

"Severe chakra depletion, severe blood loss, puncture wounds to the shoulder, ankle, back and left side, chance of concussion. What are we going to do with you, Kakashi?" Shizune molded up her chakra and knit the severed artery in Kakashi's foot back together. She melded the skin in his shoulder back in place, before moving on to the other kunai and shuriken wounds.

"You're going to need a blood transfusion, and fast. But first, I need to stop you from loosing any more blood." She healed the worst of his wounds with chakra, and bandaged the innumerable scratches that covered his body, conserving her remaining chakra to bolster Kakashi's own. He still wasn't out of the danger zone. As a medical ninja, Shizune had seen lesser shinobi die from the amount of chakra depletion Kakashi had now. Adding the exhausted chakra to the life-threatening wounds he had just obtained, Hatake Kakashi could still easily die at any moment.

Shizune laid both her palms flat against Kakashi's chest, where his chakra center rested beneath and began to pour her energy into him. It felt like she was emptying herself into a sieve. No matter how much chakra she gave him, he seemed as devoid as when she'd first arrived.

"Tsunade-sama, please hurry." She begged.

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Tsunade hadn't _meant_ to sneak away from her duties, but the opportunity had presented itself, and she wasn't one to pass up an opportunity. Genma had mentioned an underground poker game right as Shizune had stepped out of the building to find more manila folders for filing. If that wasn't an invitation, Tsunade wasn't the Fourth Hokage; and she was, damn it! She even had the ugly triangle hat to prove it.

Miracles had begun to happen around the poker table on the third hand. Somehow, Tsunade had ended up with a winning hand. Then, she'd been dealt a second. And a third. Now, on the fourth hand, the majority of the poker chips were in her possession, and she was ready to bet it all on hand number five. Yes, she _could_ have walked away with her winnings, grabbed a quick cup of sake, and headed back to the office before Shizune exploded (hell, she'd managed to cancel out most of her debt; the younger woman would be ecstatic!), but that would have been quitting.

All she needed to do was concentrate. If she focused all of her energy while the cards were being dealt, she was sure she could turn up a full house or a flush. Now, right now was the critical moment…

"Pui pui! Pui!" A piggish voice interrupted her focus.

"Not now, Tonton!" Tsunade scolded, trying to keep her mind on getting the right cards.

"Pui pui!" Tonton insisted.

Tsunade ignored the pig and looked at her cards. A whole lot of nothing.

Tonton grabbed the edge of her green jacket in her little pink snout and gave it a tug. Tsunade threw down her cards in frustration.

"What?"

The pig continued oinking. The rest of the poker table glanced at one another, wondering how the Hokage could decipher the animal's message. They shrugged, decided it was one of those things a Hokage could do, and began helping themselves to Tsunade's lost poker chips.

Tsunade listened to her pet and swore. "That damned brat! Can't he keep himself alive for one day? I just finished putting him back together from last time!" She stood up so quickly her chair tipped over, which she thought made her exit look much more dramatic, and followed the pig out of the room.

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"And you! You think you can just beat up other people's boyfriends, huh? Is that it, bastard?" Iruka asked the sobbing ninja who was currently on the receiving end of his fist. The enemy shinobi cringed and tried to ward off a blow, but Iruka's anger was far from spent, and the chuunin landed another punch on his stomach.

"Answer me!" He ordered.

"I-I…I'm sorry." The enemy cried.

"Damn right you are! Only I can lay a hand on him, understood?" Iruka growled. He threw the ninja to the ground. His foe made the wise choice to lie still and pretend to be unconscious. Iruka looked around for another opponent to be his punching bag.

The room was littered with the unconscious forms of shinobi, but there were no able-bodied people around other than Shizune, and she was otherwise occupied.

As Iruka watched the Hokage's assistant, she swayed dangerously and had to steady herself on a wall. Iruka was by her side in a flash.

The medical nin still knelt by Kakashi, who was disturbingly pale and still. Shizune's dark eyes were filled with tears, and the blood was drained from her face.

"I don't have enough chakra." She whispered. "I've given him all I can, but it doesn't help."

Iruka quickly knelt down on the other side of his lover, across from Shizune, and placed his hands on Kakashi's chakra center in mimicry of the kunoichi.

"I have some left. Teach me what to do." The sensei said.

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Tsunade followed Tonton through the streets of Konoha, wondering why exactly none of the villagers she passed seemed to find it strange to see their Hokage being led around by a pig. When she passed by ninja that didn't look busy enough, she drafted them. Knowing Hatake Kakashi, there would be a big mess to clean up wherever they were going, and she was going to have her hands full.

The banquet hall looked peaceful enough from the outside, but the scent of blood and smoke wafted out as she slid the door open. Tsunade sent the other ninja to secure the enemy with a wave of her hand. There was no battle inside, but she could only count that a small blessing, because two of her most dependable ninja were kneeling beside what looked like a corpse, swaying with exhaustion.

When she got close enough, she realized that her two most dependable ninja were also the two stupidest-they were pushing themselves past chakra depletion, and were still pouring their energy into the body between them. There would be no reasoning with them, so the Hokage pressed a chakra point on the back of the neck of one, then the other. Shizune and Iruka slumped over on the floor. The sannin turned her attention to the silver-haired jounin.

"Brat." She mumbled as she gathered him into her arms, bridal style. A transportation jutsu carried both of them to the hospital. Medics swarmed around them.

"Quickly, I need someone to find out Hatake Kakashi's blood type. He needs a transfusion, now!"

"Hatake Kakashi, blood type O." A nurse responded. She scurried away to fetch the blood.

Tsunade let the medics prepare the transfusion as she lay her patient down in the first hospital cot she could find. One of her medics rolled up Kakashi's sleeves and wiped the skin above his vein with rubbing alcohol. They took care of the blood transfusion quickly and efficiently. Tsunade was proud of them. Once the IV was in place and all the preparation was complete, Tsunade ordered the doctors and nurses out of the room.

With his system circulating with donated blood and his wounds healed by Shizune, the only thing Kakashi needed now was chakra. Despite the energy given to him by Shizune and Iruka, his body was still too weak to heal itself. If something wasn't done to stop it, his system would simply shut down. Tsunade freed the chakra stored up in the seal on her forehead and gently probed Kakashi with it. The Copy Nin had damaged his chakra paths by using too much when they were already weak, and they were leaking now. It wouldn't be enough just to pout chakra in. The energy would just drain away. She'd have to reconstruct them, much like she'd done with Rock Lee.

Tsunade swore to kick Kakashi's ass if there was anything left of him after Iruka had his way. The amount of chakra this little healing job was going to take wouldn't leave enough to keep her looking young. She was going to look like an old hag for a couple of days at least. She rolled up her sleeves and started rebuilding chakra paths. At least Jiraiya wasn't around to make fun of her…

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Kakashi woke up feeling like a bus had run over him…then backed up and run over him again. Five times. There wasn't a piece of him that didn't feel like it had been drained by some energy-sucking leech. His head throbbed with that headache he associated with being too tired to move, yet not being able to fall asleep.

Wondering why he felt that way, the jounin reasoned to himself sleepily that it must be a Monday. There were some Mondays where one just didn't feel like the rewards outweighed the consequences of getting out of bed. Kakashi decided he would feel much better about life if he just slept through this Monday and tried again on Tuesday.

The slight rustling of papers on his left side was the first clue that Kakashi's Monday theory might be slightly off the mark. His second clue came in the form of his mind shouting, "It's a Wednesday, damn it!" at him.

The Copy Ninja cracked an eye open hesitantly, and was greeted with the cheerless sight of a sterile white ceiling. The harsh light attacked his eye, so he decided that single effort was enough, and settled back down to sleep.

"Kakashi, you've got to wake up." A voice whispered beside him. His eye cracked open again, turned to the side, and found the much more cheerful sight of Iruka, who was looking down at a paper in his hands. He looked disheveled. Kakashi wondered why, and who he needed to beat up. If Iruka was going to be looking disheveled, it should be because Kakashi disheveled him, and nobody else!

"Don't think you can take the easy way out and die on me, damn it! I'll use forbidden jutsu if I have to." Iruka threatened quietly. Kakashi was vaguely touched that his lover would go to such lengths. What did he mean by 'the easy way out', though?

Kakashi ventured a third look around the room and eventually focused on the paper that Iruka held crumpled in his hands. It looked suspiciously like a Mission Report. Hmmm. 'Hatake Kakashi, Rank: Jounin'…that looked like his name…

Oh. Oh shit. Iruka was going to kick his ass. How could he have forgotten that, nine times out of ten, it was Iruka who ended up filing his paperwork? At least he was already hospitalized. Iruka wouldn't hit someone who was already injured, right?

Ahhh…at least there were plenty of doctors around, so after Iruka finished beating him up, he might have a slim chance of survival. Reassured by this marginal sliver of hope, Kakashi prepared himself for the inevitable.

"You know…I heard that kisses work pretty well for waking up sleeping hotties." He croaked, wishing his voice sounded a little more sexy and a little less like a dying toad.

Kakashi opened his eye and kept it open this time. Iruka was looking straight into it and seemed caught between anger and joy.

"I think it works for sleeping _beauties_, which definitely isn't you right now. You look like shit." The chuunin told him. Kakashi was sure he heard relief in his voice. That was a good sign at least.

"How convenient. I feel like shit too."

The jounin's throat felt dry and scratchy, and he fell into a coughing fit that made his esophagus rasp painfully. Iruka produced a glass of water and held it to his lips after gently lowering his mask. Kakashi took baby sips. The water was lukewarm and tasted heavily of minerals, but it soothed his throat nonetheless and left him feeling refreshed.

"Thanks." He smiled up at Iruka. Iruka didn't smile back.

"Mind telling me what you thought you were doing going on a mission in your condition?" The sensei asked, deceptively calm.

"Umm…I was…bored?" Kakashi ventured.

"And when, pray tell, did you decide it was acceptable to lie about your mission and tell me you were fine when you nearly died?" Iruka's grip on his calm deteriorated just a little, and Kakashi heard his voice raise an octave.

"I think that was when I found you hyperventilating in a closet, Iruka. I just didn't want you to worry about me." Kakashi tried to explain.

"I was worried about you for a reason, Kakashi! You almost DIED! Twice!" Iruka yelled.

"I'm sorry, 'Ruka. It won't happen again."

"You're right. It won't." Iruka's voice sounded strange, strained. Something was wrong.

Iruka stood from the chair he was seated in, moved Kakashi's water glass near the edge of the table so Kakashi could reach it on his own, brushed his hand against Kakashi's cheek once, then turned to leave.

"Iruka…where are you going?" Kakashi was almost afraid to ask.

"Out of your life."

Kakashi's breath quickened. "What?" He gasped. "Out…? You mean until I've healed, right? Until I get better, so you can kick my ass and everything can go back-"

"No." Iruka interrupted. "Out for good. I shouldn't have messed with the curse. We're lucky this ended where it did." Iruka opened the door, which made a pitiful squeak as if to protest. "Goodbye, Kakashi." He said without turning.

"No, you can't go." Kakashi whispered with a failing voice. He swallowed and tried again. "Iruka, wait! You can't go." Iruka didn't respond. That damned curse…

The curse?

"Iruka, don't leave! I've figured it out! I know how to stop the curse!" He shouted, hoping he was loud enough. He couldn't hear Iruka's footsteps anymore, but he wasn't sure if it was because he was too far away, or because he'd stopped moving.

Kakashi squeezed his eye shut. When he opened it again, Iruka was standing at the door, looking straight at him.

"What did you say?" the brunet asked slowly.

"I know what the curse is." Kakashi repeated.

"Tell me." Iruka ordered.

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Iruka waited as Kakashi took a sip of water, cleared his throat, and opened his mouth.

"The curse…" he trailed off.

"Yes?" Iruka asked eagerly.

"…doesn't exist!" He finished happily. Iruka wondered what the hospital policies were on killing patients.

"Kakashi, you and I both know that there's a curse! Everyone who I ever _touched_ has marks to show for it!"

"You're not cursed, Iruka! Don't you understand? You're just too sexy for your own good!" Kakashi shouted at him.

Iruka groaned with frustration. "You mean to tell me _that's_ your theory? You must have gotten a concussion. Goodbye." Iruka turned to leave again, wondering why he had even bothered coming back. He was so stupid to let himself build up hope.

"The reason I almost got killed on my mission the other day, it was because I was thinking about you." Kakashi called after him. Iruka froze. "I was thinking of ways to ask you to go see the Icha Icha movie with me, and I forgot to concentrate on my mission. Even when I had ninja chasing after me and throwing kunai, all I could think about was you."

Iruka turned back toward his lover. He needed to look into Kakashi's eye, to see if he was lying. What he was saying sounded so stupid.

"I think that might have been what happened to the others, at least part of it. I'd need to talk to Raido to be sure."

Iruka shook his head in disbelief. "You…you _honestly_ believe that's all there is to it? That everyone gets hurt because I'm _sexy_?"

"Have you ever seen yourself when you go into sensei-mode, Iruka? You're captivating. Your smile, your eyes, everything about you, you just takes over peoples' minds. Even when we try to think of something else, you're always there." Kakashi gestured, trying futilely to explain.

"What about Masaru? He didn't die because he wasn't paying attention." Kakashi looked like he was going to protest, but instead took a breath and cleared away any rash emotions.

"He died because Mizuki killed him, Iruka. The man admitted it freely. He may or may not have had anything to do with any of the others, but I'm sure he was the one who pushed that cart on Masaru."

Iruka took a shaky breath. Masaru…was it true? Mizuki certainly said he hated Masaru when he ranted about him, but Iruka had never even imagined…

"Anko." He said, desperate to escape his train of thought. "How do you explain that?"

"She was apprenticed to Orochimaru. Orochimaru, you know, missing nin, former Akatsuki, disturbingly fascinated by small boys? He was a bomb waiting to go off. You kissed Anko because she was going on the mission, right? A big mission, just the two of them, far from Konoha…it was bound to happen." Iruka admitted that Kakashi might be right, at least about Anko.

"So, suppose you're right, Kakashi? It still doesn't change anything. You'll still get hurt if I stick around." Iruka made his third attempt to leave the hospital.

"Iruka! Leaving won't help! You'll only make it worse!" Kakashi shouted after him.

Iruka's eyes teared up, despite his best efforts. "What should I do, then, huh? How can I fix this? How can I keep you from getting killed?" He cried.

"If you leave, I'll still think about you. There's only one option." Kakashi explained. He tried to sit up in his cot, but he barely got his head off the pillow before he slumped back down.

"What? What can I do?" Iruka asked, leaning forward in anticipation.

"We have to have sex. Lots of sex." Kakashi stated matter-of-factly. Iruka fell to the ground in surprise.

"What? You bastard! Feeding me some half-assed theory just so you could get into my pants!" Iruka's face burned with embarrassment at letting himself be fooled.

"But I'm not joking, Iruka. I need to build up a tolerance to you." Kakashi said bluntly.

Iruka looked into Kakashi's single eye. It was ringed with dark lines, and a drooping eyelid obscured part of it. Still, Iruka couldn't find any trace of dishonesty in it.

"You're serious?" He asked.

"Yes. I think, once I've had a chance to be with you more, and everything stops feeling so…new, it'll be easier to focus when I need to. Right now, I have too many unfulfilled Iruka-fantasies floating around in my head to get any thinking done. I keep focusing on them because I'm afraid that I won't get a chance to act on any of them. Once I know that you're not going to disappear, I won't have to worry so much."

"So, let me get this straight." Iruka said. "People around me die because I'm too sexy and make them have fantasies while on missions. To counteract this, you want to have sex? It's not logical." This is what he got for dating a guy with a one-track mind…

"Yes, it is. I need more exposure to you, so I can build up an immunity to your deadly sexiness factor. I think my jounin ninja skills will keep me alive on missions long enough, if we don't waste too much time getting started." Kakashi said, smirking.

"If I have sex with you, fulfill these 'Iruka fantasies' of yours, you won't die?" Iruka asked again.

"Yes." Kakashi replied with confidence.

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

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Kakashi finished reassuring Iruka of his theory.

"Promise." He said, hoping that Iruka understood he was promising that he was sure, not that he wouldn't die. Everyone died eventually.

The Copy Ninja gasped when Iruka suddenly pounced on him, and settled on top of him, straddling the jounin's hips.

"Iruka, what are you doing?" Kakashi gasped, hoping that his voice didn't sound as high and panicky to Iruka as it did to his own ears.

"Getting started." Iruka explained as he planted a kiss on Kakashi's lips.

"Ahh, Iruka, I…I appreciate sex as much as the next guy, but I'm injured right now." Kakashi gasped. Iruka's hand snuck underneath his hospital gown and started doing wicked things.

"Iruka…we can't. Give me time to recover and I'm all yours, but…AHH…I can't right now." Kakashi pleaded.

"Looks like you can." Iruka commented as Kakashi hardened against his hand. "I don't care if you are injured; I care that I need to keep you alive." Iruka started shedding his clothes.

If Kakashi hadn't been so weak he couldn't move, he would have found this new, forceful Iruka incredibly sexy. Scratch that, he was so weak he couldn't move and he still thought it was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen. If he possessed even an ounce of chakra, he would've been on top of Iruka in a heartbeat.

"Iruka, I…_can't_ right now." He said more quietly this time.

"Don't worry. You don't need to do anything." Iruka told him gently. Then he smirked. "Just lay back and enjoy the ride."

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Iruka sat in the chair beside Kakashi's hospital cot, watching his exhausted lover sleep. Their fuck hadn't been anything spectacular, but it had been pleasant, and Iruka was glad that Kakashi had managed to stay awake for all of it. True, he'd fallen asleep as soon as it was over, leaving Iruka to clean up the evidence of their dalliance or risk an embarrassing conversation with the nurses later.

Little drops of sweat covered Kakashi's brow, so Iruka wiped them away and brushed the damp tendrils of hair away from his lover's face. The chuunin wasn't sure if he really believed Kakashi's explanation of the curse, but he was sure of one thing- he wasn't going to run away any more. Kakashi could die any day on a mission, curse or no curse, and Iruka wanted to be in his life until he did.

Besides, if Kakashi had made it this far, maybe he really could beat the curse. If the jounin wasn't going to give up after all that had happened in the last few days, Iruka certainly wasn't. Especially since Kakashi hadn't found his tickle-spot yet…

In the end, life just boils down to risks, and which ones you choose to take. Looking down at his pale, sweating, chakra-exhausted boyfriend, Iruka got the overwhelming feeling that this risk was one worth taking.

All in all, the sensei thought his future looked pretty bright. Yes, he'd have to deal with angry parents wondering why their children wanted to get laid, and gossipy co-workers asking why he hadn't left Kakashi's hospital room since he'd been brought there, but there was a lot to look forward to, as well. Mainly, kicking Kakashi's ass for lying to him, then working more extensively on this 'immunity' business.

Iruka smiled to himself as he watched Kakashi's chest rise and fall, feeling glad that he was able to do so. It occurred to him suddenly, almost shockingly, that here was a man willing to risk death to be with him. The thought was overwhelming, and it made Iruka's chest tighten.

'I guess I'll have to make sure it's worth it for him.' He thought. Kakashi smiled in his sleep, and Iruka thought it made him look beautiful. He pulled Kakashi's mask up so the nurses wouldn't see the zealously guarded face and left the room quickly. He'd have to hurry so he could be back before Kakashi woke, but there was an important errand to be done. If he was going to make it worth it to Kakashi, there were some tickets he needed to buy.

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The end! Except, not quite. There's still an epilogue, and a side-story about the Icha Icha movie premier. I'm not sure which will come first, so they will come in the order I feel like writing them.

And as for what comes next, I still haven't decided. I might write a fic with Pakkun; I'd forgotten that idea before, but as I was going back over this story to see what needs to be wrapped up, I mentioned something about that, so I might have to write that one. Whatever. I'll figure that out as it comes. I still have final exams to worry over before I start another story.

Thanks for all of your reviews!


	15. Side Story: Icha Icha Adventure

AN: Just wanted to say sorry for taking so long to get this written- I thought I'd have time over the break, but I always forget how hard it is to write when I'm with the chaos that is my family.

Also, a huge thanks to everyone on KakaIru that offered a suggestion for a costume. The majority of you said you wanted to see pirates, but I'm afraid I fell in love with another idea too. I tried to throw in as many of the ideas as I could, though. You'll have to see as you read.

The Curse

Side Story: Icha Icha Adventure

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It was a beautiful Friday morning in Konoha, and Kakashi was sitting up in his hospital cot, staring out the window at the happy, oblivious people below and stewing in his misery.

The restless copy nin had already spent the entirety of two days lying in the uncomfortable, sterile bed (although Iruka's enthusiasm in his quest to 'cure' Kakashi of the Curse had helped pass the time quite effectively), and today was…

Today was the opening of the Icha Icha movie. Since he'd spent all the time since he'd returned from his mission recovering from severe chakra damage, he'd never gotten a chance to buy his ticket. Now, in a village filled with perverts like Konoha was, every glorious ticket was sold out.

The Man of a Thousand Jutsu thought it was fitting irony that the doctor had come in about ten minutes ago and told him he could return home today, granted he made sure to rest and had someone to stay with him and administer medications and monitor him as needed. He'd be sitting home doing nothing on opening night, while the rest of the village crowded into the theatre to see Jiraiya's masterpiece in cinema form. Life sucked.

The door to Kakashi's prison-cell hospital room slid open, and Iruka leaned his head in. His brunet lover glanced left and right, making sure no one else was around before he pounced. Not even the promise of Iruka-sex could pull Kakashi out of his Icha Icha induced depression.

The chuunin hopped onto Kakashi's cot and slid his warm fingers under the jounin's hospital gown. He traced patterns on the pale man's thighs.

"What's wrong?" He purred into Kakashi's neck. "I thought you'd be happy; I get to bring you home tonight." Kakashi refused to meet Iruka's eyes. How could he explain the depths of his loss to someone who had never even glimpsed at the poetic masterpiece that was Icha Icha Paradise? How futile it would be.

"Should I call the doctor in here for you?" Iruka asked. His fingers were still trailing up and down Kakashi's bare legs. "Or maybe _I_ can give you something to make you feel better." He whispered provocatively. Kakashi sighed and shook his head.

"Nothing?" Iruka pouted. 'If this was Icha Icha, I'd lean forward and nibble on his quivering lower lip.' Kakashi's unhelpful mind reminded him. His mind began to wail. 'Icha Icha movie! Noooo!'

"So, nothing can cheer you up? That's too bad, because I brought you a present and everything. Oh well, I guess I can always scalp these and get my money back." Iruka pulled one of his hands away from Kakashi's inner thigh and waved it in the air for a moment with a showman's flourish. When he finished the move, he held two tickets between his first two fingers. Kakashi's eye bulged.

"Are those…?" he asked hoarsely. He snatched up the tickets without waiting for an answer. "They are! Iruka, you're… these are…I mean…" The jounin couldn't articulate the pure, unadulterated joy those tickets filled him with. He caught the collar of Iruka's chuunin vest and pulled him into a searing kiss that he hoped would convey the message. Then he shot up out of bed with lightning speed to start making their costumes, leaving Iruka stunned and still a little aroused in the empty room.

"Well, you'd better thank me properly later." He mumbled, and went to sign Kakashi's release forms.

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Iruka didn't catch sight of Kakashi for more than two minutes until well after the sun had set. The man had set out to make movie costumes for the two of them, and he'd apparently taken his mission to heart. Every hour or so, he'd pop in with a measuring tape in hand, and descend on Iruka to take a measurement. As abruptly as he came, he'd leave again, without a word or a kiss or anything. Considering that Iruka had spent the last two days jumping him at every possible moment, the chuunin was starting to feel a little lonely. He couldn't wait for the movie to start so he could get his lover to stay in one place long enough to molest him properly.

The premier was at 12:01, so even after it was dark, there was still time to kill before they had to be at the theatre. Iruka had been hoping to grab a bite to eat with his favorite jounin, then maybe satisfy a few _other_ appetites, before they had to depart, but now it looked like he'd be lucky if they could even walk to the theatre together.

Iruka snatched up a book from his shelf and settled down on the couch to read. 'I wonder what sort of costumes Kakashi will come up with. I hope he realizes he's supposed to be resting.' Trying to read was useless when Kakashi was on his brain.

Iruka scanned the room and his eyes fell on the tacky orange covers of Kakashi's Icha Icha books, lined up neatly on the bottom shelf of Iruka's bookshelf. Hmm. Should he…?

Iruka shook his head to clear away the stray thoughts. No, there was no way he was going to _read_ one of those atrocious books, not even to prepare himself mentally for whatever emotionally-scarring costume Kakashi was going to force him into.

…But maybe lightly _skimming_ those atrocious books would be acceptable. Iruka slid Volume One out of its designated spot on the shelf and examined the cover. There was a woman in a slinky red dress and a man in a white tee shirt and plain blue slacks. Ok, maybe this dressing up thing wouldn't be so bad; Iruka just needed to be firm in his communication to Kakashi that he would not wear a dress.

Greatly comforted by the relative normality of Volume One, Iruka slid the first novel back into its place and picked up Volume Two.

The cover was a little more concerning. A dashing young warlock was pointing an oversized wand rather suggestively at a pretty witch, whose dark robes ended high on her pale thighs.

Volume Two was replaced and Volume Three was pulled out. This orange affront to decency portrayed a busty beauty in a skimpy bikini hitting a beach ball to a bronzed hunk in a tight swimsuit. That had better not be what Kakashi had in mind. First off, it was too cold for that sort of attire (the spring weather was pleasant during the day, but this late after dark one needed at least a light coat to feel comfortable), and secondly, _no one_ was allowed to see that much of Kakashi's skin unless his name started with Umino and ended with Iruka. Iruka shook his head and shoved the novel back into its spot between books Two and Four.

"I hope you aren't judging them by their covers, Iruka-sensei." A voice chided. Iruka looked up guiltily at Kakashi. His lover smirked behind his mask.

"This isn't what it looks like! I wasn't _reading_ them! I just wanted to know what sort of costumes you'd be trying to force me into." Iruka stammered.

"Ah yes, costumes. Let me get changed and show you mine, then I'll give you yours." The Copy Nin said. He lifted a garment bag he'd dropped on the table as he'd broken in and locked himself in Iruka's bedroom.

Iruka glared at the orange books on the shelf as he waited for Kakashi to change, as if it were their fault Kakashi had caught him in such an embarrassing act.

"What do you think?" Kakashi asked as he swung open the door and leaned provocatively in the doorframe. Iruka eyed him from head to toe. He was dressed up as some sort of disreputable doctor, with a surgical mask covering his face and silver hair brushed down over his sharingan eye. Where had the jounin found such tight scrubs, bottoms that left no shapes to the imagination and tops that left a line of flesh halfway down his chest in plain view? And that white lab coat, how did it manage to stay on him without covering any of him?

"You can call me Doctor Longstaff, Volume One, Part II." The jounin told him. He tossed the garment bag to Iruka. "Here, try yours on." He said eagerly.

Iruka unzipped the bag and reached inside. He felt around for the cool metal of the wire hanger, and pulled out the costume slowly. He looked it over once, then turned to Kakashi to see if it was a joke.

"You're kidding, right? Because there's no way IN HELL I'm putting this _thing_ on me." Said thing was tossed to the ground to emphasize the chuunin's point. The costume made a valiant attempt to flutter down gracefully, but there wasn't enough material to flutter.

The costume that Kakashi had given Iruka was a nurse's outfit, but one that would've gotten any self-respecting nurse kicked out of the hospital for good. The nurse-garb existed in three pieces: a tight white mini-skirt (+), an even tighter skin-hugging top, and a pair of strappy white heels. Iruka estimated that if he were wearing it, only twenty-seven percent of his body would be covered.

"But Iruka! I spent all day… now what are we supposed to wear? Don't you want to match with me?" Kakashi whined. Iruka dove at the bookshelf, and threw Volume One at Kakashi's head. The Copy Nin caught the book in midair and sighed. "Fine. Let me get the next costumes."

Kakashi bit his thumb and wiped the droplets of blood onto a summoning scroll. Out popped a second garment bag. The jounin unzipped it and waved its contents in the air. A black leather corset with long black boots and a wicked looking whip.

"I'm not going out in public dressed like some sort of dominatrix!" Iruka yelled.

"Oh, so you'll wear it in private?" Kakashi chuckled. Iruka threw Volume Two at his head. With both hands occupied with the costume, the book hit its target unhindered, with a satisfying thump.

Kakashi produced a skimpy bikini from a pocket in his vest. Iruka threw Volume Three. The jounin held up a leopard-print loin cloth. Iruka threw Volume Four.

Kakashi summoned another bag, and offered a nearly-transparent toga, a bunny suit (playboy-esque, not easter-esque), and a grass-skirt and cocoanut shirt combo. Iruka was running out of Icha Ichas to throw.

The final costume was pulled from the bag. It clinked as Kakashi lifted it up for Iruka's inspection. Iruka had an Icha Icha in his hand, ready to throw, but he lowered it as he eyed the wispy material and listened to the melodic clatter of beads. Kakashi gave him a look, and Iruka nodded. He took the bag from Kakashi and shoved him out of the way of the door so he could shut it and change.

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Kakashi hadn't _known_ that Iruka would reject all the costumes before that one, but one might say that he had suspected it. He had known that Iruka would reject all dresses, skirts, and swimsuits, but he had to admit he wasn't sure how the chuunin would react to his favorite costume.

The jounin heard his lover before he saw him emerge from the bedroom. The chuunin stood still and allowed himself to be examined, before spinning to give his lover the full view. Kakashi couldn't have been more pleased with the costume.

The silken pants handing low on Iruka's tan hips were a deep blue, and wrapped around them was a belt with stings of dark blue beads hanging down and clattering together every time Iruka shifted his weight. His top half was marginally covered with a beaded blue silk vest that hung open and revealed Iruka's muscled chest and abs. A transparent blue cloth was wrapped around his shoulders as a shawl. The bottom half of his face was masked with a similar cloth, with a piece of dark blue ribbon both securing the gauzy fabric in place and holding more beads. The ribbon was situated just right so that it covered the recognizable scar on the chuunin's nose. As the final touch, Iruka had let down his hair and lined his eyes with black eye-liner. The man looked like sex.

The chuunin shifted a little under the close scrutiny, and Kakashi was delighted to see the beads sway and clank.

"So, who am I?" Iruka asked. Was it just Kakashi's imagination, or were the sensei's eyes burning? Maybe it was just the combined effects of the dark eyeliner and Iruka's half-lidded stare.

"Ali the belly-dancer, V-volume Seven." Kakashi gasped. His throat felt strangely dry.

"And who are you going to be? You did say you wanted to match." Iruka whispered. His voice was low and sensual, and he seemed to be swaying more than he usually did when he was standing still. Kakashi's eyes were drawn to the swinging beads that encircled Iruka's waist, and he followed them up to Iruka's hips again.

"Hmm?" Iruka had asked him a question. What was it? Oh, right, Icha Icha. " I'm not sure who to be." He answered honestly, though his thoughts were on other things (mainly Iruka's hips, and the alluring shadows the protruding hipbones cast as they disappeared beneath the blue silk).

Iruka stepped forward, sending the beads into a frenzy. "What do you mean? It can't be that hard. Who does Ali sleep with?" Kakashi forced his eyes up, but got caught by the swinging beads on Iruka's vest.

"Three-fourths of Volume Seven." Kakashi bet those beads would shake if he shifted the vest over and licked Iruka's nipple. Oh, how fun it would be to listen to the music Iruka would make as he trembled.

"Oh." Iruka didn't sound scandalized like he should have; just thoughtful. "Well, let's hear the options."

Kakashi's gaze made it up past Iruka's neck, but the hazy shape of Iruka's lips from beneath the mask made him pause before he could catch Iruka's glowering eyes. "Let's see…" Kakashi licked his dry lips. "There's the sultan in the palace scene, then the sultan's brother, and the handsome stable boy. There's a threesome with the baker and the candlestick maker at the market-place, the pirate prince at the port, the bandit-lord along the high-" Iruka waved his hand for silence.

"Pirate prince? That sounds…sexy." Kakashi finally caught Iruka's eyes, and this time, there was no denying the lust in them. The teacher's gaze froze him in his tracks. "Go change." Iruka prodded. Kakashi nodded as if he were hypnotized and shot off to do Iruka's bidding.

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Iruka shifted his weight from left foot to right as he waited for Kakashi to change into his new costume. He enjoyed listening to the sound of the beads, and found himself swaying unconsciously with every step he took. He couldn't help it- the costume made him feel… sensual …mischievous… sexy. He felt like he had the power to grab the attention of anyone who looked at him, to make them want him and wrap them around his fingers.

Not that he planned on going out in public in this get-up. He'd wear a trench-coat to the theatre, or change into his costume once he got there (anyone who saw him there at the theatre was a pervert anyways, so they wouldn't ruin his reputation). He just hoped Kakashi wouldn't embarrass him by parading all over the village in whatever costume he chose.

Speaking of Kakashi, the Copy Nin was sliding the door open. And from his ruffled, unlaced shirt down to his knee-high brown boots, Kakashi looked absolutely edible. A red sash around his waist held a sheathed blade, and a tri-corned hat adorned his head. A strip of black silk wrapped dramatically around his left eye hid his sharingan, and a second larger piece masked the lower half of his face. A tight vest finished off his costume.

"Like it?" Kakashi asked. Iruka nodded. He sashayed up to Kakashi and jerked the ninja forward by the ends of the vest.

"I like it very much." Iruka whispered into a kiss. He started to unknot the sash. Kakashi caught his wrist.

"Iruka, we don't have time. We've got to get to the theatre." Iruka looked into his lover's eye and gave him his best 'don't disobey the sensei' look.

"It only takes fifteen minutes to walk to the theatre, and we've got over an hour before the movie starts. Now strip!" He ordered. Kakashi wiggled out of his grasps.

"But Iruka, we have to get good seats!" He wailed. Iruka grabbed the final Icha Icha volume from the shelf and pegged Kakashi with it. Some of his anger appeased, he sighed.

"Fine, get me my trench-coat." He demanded. Kakashi sprang up to fetch it. Iruka looked down at his waist, glad that the loose silk pants he was wearing didn't reveal his frustration. Damn it, he'd been horny all day, and it was all Kakashi's fault for awakening his repressed feelings then failing to satisfy them. The older man should take a little more responsibility! Iruka glared at Kakashi a little as the silver-haired man brought him his coat, but given the hotness of his costume, his anger was only half-hearted. Besides, it was only an hour before the movie started and Iruka could get some satisfaction. The pair paused only long enough to arm themselves underneath their costumes (hey, the theatre was going to be full of perverts, and Kakashi and Iruka were both looking very ravishing) before they headed out of Iruka's apartment and down the street.

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There were still forty-seven minutes before the movie was scheduled to start, but the theatre was already starting to fill up. Kakashi made a bee-line for the back corner seats, dragging Iruka by the hand. He had to get those seats! The back corner seats on the left side of the theatre were the only seats that offered any privacy. The corner right seats were right beside the exit, and people walked past it every time they left for food or a bathroom break. The back middle row had twenty seats, not ideal unless one wanted an audience or an orgy. Any other seat in the room had at least one row of people sitting behind it, able to observe every move one person made on another.

The corner left seats, on the other hand, were two seats in the shadowy back corner. Even the armrest dividing them had been long since removed for optimal maneuvering room. Kakashi would procure those seats for Iruka and himself if it killed him.

A school-girl and her wandering-hands teacher from Volume Five were already entangled in the prized seats. Iruka moved to sit down in the row in front of them, but Kakashi held his hand and stopped him. It took only a glared and a few menacing pantomimes from behind Iruka before the couple got the point that Sharingan-no-Kakashi wanted their seats and they damn well better vacate, and fled to the middle row and cowered. Kakashi bowed and offered Iruka the inside seat.

Iruka slid out of his trench coat and sat down. Kakashi settled into the seat beside them and the two turned to watch the other movie-goers enter the theatre. Kakashi identified the costume, Icha Icha volume, and the scene that each person was cosplaying. A few of the more enthusiastic viewers gave the two ninja a looking over and said, "Volume Seven. Niiiiice." When one lingered too long on Iruka's low-slung pants, Kakashi reached for a kunai and sent the marauder on his way.

"You don't have to protect me." Iruka murmured into Kakashi's ear after he sent the latest Icha Icha enthusiast running for the right side of the theatre. "I am armed, you know." He drew a stylized kunai from within the folds of his clothing, and gripped it tightly. He gave Kakashi a sultry look. The Copy Nin gulped. They couldn't do anything yet; the lights were still on and people were still filing in and taking their seats.

"How much longer?" Iruka asked. The chuunin leaned his body over until it was flush with Kakashi's, and slid a hand down the exposed skin of his chest.

"Only t-ten m-minutes. Oh, look! Movie trivia!" Kakashi yelped. He tried to focus on the names and dates of famous movies, at least until a more appropriate time came for him to entertain his lover. It seemed like an eternity waiting for the previews.

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Iruka figured it would be tacky to jump Kakashi during the previews, so he waited patiently through all six theatrical trailers. For the most part, they were advertising other adult movies, although there was one advertising a respectable romance movie that Fujikaze Yukie would be starring in. The final preview- Icha Icha Movie 2- send the audience into a cheering riot.

Iruka waited. He was determined to let Kakashi make the first move so that the jounin could get his fill of the beloved movie before Iruka distracted him. Even if he had to show the restraint of a Buddhist monk.

Glancing over at Kakashi, Iruka decided he might have a problem. Kakashi was watching the opening credits, completely enthralled. He giggled every few minutes. Iruka couldn't figure out why- unless Kakashi thought the assistant director had a funny name, or they misspelled something.

The first scene started to play out, and from the enraptured look on the Copy Nin's face, they weren't going to be taking advantage of their private seats any time soon. Iruka looked around the theatre to see if all the moviegoers were reacting that way. Nope. A few of them were watching the movie, but most were caught between watching the screen and touching each other.

Surely, surely Kakashi would want to work off a little tension after a sex scene or two. Iruka waited. Three scenes went by, and the orgy in the back middle row started up. By now there was no one but Kakashi and the freaky guy in the front row watching the movie, and from the sporadic jerking, Iruka was pretty sure front row guy was getting better acquainted with his right hand.

The chuunin sensei decided to take matters into his own hands. He slid one hand stealthily into Kakashi's seat and rested it gently on a leather-clad thigh. The jounin didn't seem to notice. Iruka rubbed the leg, venturing dangerously close to his crotch. Kakashi's eyes never left the screen.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Iruka saw a gloved hand move. 'Finally!' he thought. But the hand didn't land on Iruka's aching need, or even on Iruka at all. No, Kakashi was only adjusting his eye patch, lifting the black silk out of the way so he could copy some move the actor onscreen was making with his sharingan.

"Kakashi." Iruka whispered. The jounin showed no sign of hearing him. "Kakashi!" He hissed again. "Damn it, Hatake, I want sex." He wailed softly. The couple in front of them turned around.

"You're welcome to join us." They offered. Iruka shook his head, and the couple went back to nibbling one another's lips.

Iruka watched the screen miserably. The movie wasn't well written, and it was far from anything resembling reality, but there were still people on screen moaning and touching one another, and Iruka's body was responding. There was nothing to do but watch and wait (he refused to stoop to the level of freaky front-row guy and jerk off in a public place). Although…that back-row orgy was sounding really good right now. No, none of those unsuspecting pervs would be able to handle the curse, and besides, he was head over heels for the frustrating silver-haired nin beside him.

Next time, Iruka swore, he'd let Kakashi come to the premier of the Icha Icha movie by himself, and they'd go see it together later. Iruka decided to count how many times someone yelled a cheesy line like, "Ohh-hhh, I'm coming!" or "Your throbbing cock feels sooooo good!" to pass the time.

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Forty-seven cheesy lines later, the movie ended (very climatically, Iruka thought, pun intended) and the credits started to roll. The couples all around the room set about straightening their clothes and gathering their things to leave. The back row orgy members began to disentangle themselves, and freaky front row guy zipped up his pants, wiped his hands on a handkerchief, and left. Kakashi had yet to move a muscle, other than to sharingan key parts.

It wasn't until the last name rolled off the screen and the lights came on that Kakashi blinked and looked over at Iruka.

"Wasn't that awesome?" He asked. Iruka just looked at him. The chuunin stood up and walked out of the theatre. His stiff erection made his walk a sort of awkward limp, much different from the sexy sway he'd adopted on the way in, although the belly-dancer beads still tried to make his walk sound graceful with their delicate music.

"Iruka, wait up!" Kakashi called. He sprinted after him. "Can you believe how they portrayed Jun? And wasn't Yukie-san's performance amazing? I've met her twice on missions, you know." Iruka ignored Kakashi's rambling commentary on the movie. He walked a little bit faster and outdistanced Kakashi.

"Iruka, why are you walking so fast?" Kakashi mused as he caught up to him again. He continued right where he left off. "I thought the final scene deviated from the book, but they brought it back around in the end, don't you think?"

Iruka's hands clenched into fists, and he twirled around on Kakashi suddenly. "Kakashi." He growled. "I don't care about the DAMN movie!" While Kakashi was gasping and gaping and wondering how anyone could speak such blasphemy about the Icha Icha movie, Iruka continued down the street.

For the first time, Kakashi looked at Iruka and noticed his stiff gait. His eye widened in realization. He ran to Iruka, threw his arms around the chuunin, and transported them to his apartment.

"I'm sorry I neglected you." The jounin whispered. He nuzzled his head into Iruka's neck in apology. "I can make it up to you."

"You'd better." Iruka gasped. Kakashi slid a leg in between Iruka's, sending the beads into a musical flurry, and guided him toward the bedroom.

"Oh, I will. I have some new moves, remember?" He said, uncovering his sharingan eye.

A vague part of Iruka's conscience protested that the Copy Nin was supposed to be resting, but Iruka silenced that voice quickly. He'd been frustrated all day, and Kakashi was going to make up for it. Besides, Kakashi still hadn't thanked him properly for those tickets…

Iruka fully intended to let the jounin rest and recover…eventually.

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(+)Iruka throws down the mini-skirt, and somewhere very far away, Roy Mustang bursts out into tears.

When I first wrote about Kakashi and the Icha Icha movie in chapter 9, I started thinking about how Kakashi would react. I figured, like me, he'd be the type to be completely enthralled by the movie (I'm really bad about that. I either have a running commentary on a movie or tune everything else out and appear as a vegetable to all onlookers).


	16. Epilogue

AN: The last piece of the Curse is finally here! A special thanks to **IcySapphire15** for the challenge, to **Chibinecco** for beta-ing for me, and to the KakaIru livejournal group for giving me suggestions: **Chibinecco** for Iruka-fantasies, **Kairukashi** and **Tiddarifka** for Gai challenges, and **Rusigil** for making me smile with mental images of Kakashi, Iruka, and dirty origami.

Disclaimer: I don't remember if I've done one for this fic before or not. Naruto is mine only in my dark little fantasies.

The Curse:

Epilogue

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Three months after his Hip and Modern Rival went on a mission, almost got himself killed, was healed by Tsunade, went on another mission, almost got himself killed again, and was healed a second time by Tsunade, Gai went on a Noble and Youthful Quest to Challenge Kakashi to an Unprecedented Match of Wit, Strength, and Skill.

The silver haired man proved to be quite elusive. Since he had been proclaimed well enough to work again, the Revered and Esteemed Hokage had been sending the Copy Nin on D-ranked Missions of Patience and Valor every waking moment. On the rare breaks between these Tasks of Tremendous Trepidation, Kakashi always managed to disappear with his not-so-secret lover, the Greatly Honored Teacher of his Cute and Rambunctious Students.

That being as it was, Gai decided the best way to find his rival, who was scheduled to return from a Stable Cleaning of the Utmost Importance for the Safety of the Village, was to follow Iruka around and catch his Besotted Bosom Friend off-guard.

"Excuse me, Gai-san?" A tentative voice interrupted Gai's booming internal monologue.

"Yes, oh Bright and Noble Companion of my Adversary?" Gai responded.

Iruka raised one Chocolate-colored brow. "Is there a reason you're standing outside my window and posing, Gai-san? I'm afraid I'm trying to teach a lesson in here, and you're distracting my students."

"Ah, Commendable Iruka-sensei, ever thinking of the well-being of your Youthful Pupils! Perhaps I can be of aid to you in the Instruction of these Exuberant Examples of Konoha Shinobi." Gai generously offered.

Iruka blinked, no doubt stunned mute by the Mind-Boggling Honor of having such a Beautiful Beast as himself teaching in his classroom.

"I'm so sorry, Gai-san, but I just can't work it into the lesson plan today." Iruka said, voice wavering with the intense sadness of such a marvelous missed opportunity. Gai imagined there must be violins playing their mournful songs in the distance.

"Some other time then." Gai assured the poor teacher. He couldn't allow the Love of his Eternal Rival to labor on without hope, especially while undertaking such a Noble Task as raising the next generation of Konoha Ninja with a Will of Fire.

Not wanting to taunt the Deprived Students with instruction that they couldn't have, Gai removed his personage from the window and chose a more distant vantage point to continue his stake-out. He wondered idly if he could locate his Rival faster if he found one of those orange books the Man-of-a-Thousand-Jutsu always read, but decided against it. Only a select few, like his Noble Companion Kakashi, could read those books without having their Purity tainted. 'Besides, it shouldn't take too long to wait' he counseled himself. 'He was expected to arrive at ten, so he should be here at one, and that's only an hour and a half. Just enough time for Training in Patience and Strength.'

Gai hopped up into a tree and balanced his weight onto the smallest fingers of each hand. 'If I can't hold this position until Kakashi arrives, I'll climb the Hokage Monument using only my toes.' He declared silently.

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Hatake Kakashi needed help. He really did. Because he was sick, Iruka-lovesick, and three month's exposure hadn't changed a thing. Sure, it was becoming easier to dodge kunai while distracted, and his survival reflexes were honing themselves to perfection, but his thoughts had yet to clear from the haze of Iruka-fantasies. He no longer feared for his life while on missions, but he still saw Icha Icha type scenes in every possible scenario.

He was returning from a mission on the coast, and seeing all those half-naked people lounging on the beach hadn't helped. And it wasn't even pretty people, either. His rebellious mind could twist any situation into a way to have sex with Iruka. There had been this fat, hairy man sunbathing, for example, and Kakashi's thoughts went thus:

'Eww, gross. Cover that up. Holy shit, are you wearing a speedo? Nasty…I bet Iruka would gag if he saw this… hmmm, Iruka, speedo…Iruka in a speedo, mmmhhh.'

From there sprang numerous fantasies about speedo-clad Iruka, lying in the sand, waiting for Kakashi to come and rub tanning oil over every inch of his golden skin…

Later on this particular mission, Kakashi had been spying on a mechanic for information, until one of the mechanic's assistants had pointed out a broken piece of merchandise, which was leaking scalding hot oil. When the assistant used the words, "hot", "wet" and "dripping", Kakashi's brain immediately translated it into terms of an Iruka fantasy, which soon joined forces with the first Iruka fantasy, until Kakashi was crouched in the shadows imagining rubbing warm oil over every inch of speedo-clad Iruka, who was begging Kakashi to deal with something else that was 'hot, wet, and dripping'.

Needless to say, with everything he saw or heard setting off another image of Iruka in his head, Kakashi couldn't wait to get home and test some of his new ideas out.

Ever the thorough jounin, Kakashi timed his return perfectly so he could meet up with Iruka in that twenty minutes after Academy teaching and before he started his Mission Room shift. Since that day in the hospital when the chuunin had resolved to build up Kakashi's immunity to him, the sensei had always saved that time for him.

Before Kakashi could dive through the window of Iruka's classroom and pounce on his lover (who was grading papers much too sexily to be allowed to continue unchecked), though, Kakashi caught a glimpse of unnaturally bright green in the corner of his eye.

There was only one way to deal with Gai when horny and in a hurry, Kakashi knew, and that was to ignore him. Kakashi opened up the classroom window, pulled down the shades with exaggerated motions (subtlety worked on Gai about the same as it did on Naruto; that is, not at all), and prepared to pounce on Iruka, who was now nibbling on a pen in a suggestive manner that gave birth to Iruka fantasies three and four right on the spot.

Maybe it was a misuse of his ninja skills, but Kakashi used his chakra to crouch on Iruka's desk without making a sound or disturbing the papers Iruka was grading. He stealthily leaned forward, and with lightning fast reflexes, replaced the pen on Iruka's lips with his tongue. Iruka returned his kiss eagerly, and pulled away only when the copy nin had been thoroughly kissed.

"Got time to welcome a shinobi back from a mission?" Kakashi asked. Iruka nuzzled Kakashi's cheek in response.

"Always." The chuunin looked up at Kakashi through his eyelashes, and tilted his head up for a kiss.

_Thump!_ The shaded window bumped and rattled, and Iruka tore his gaze away from Kakashi.

"What was that?" He gasped. Kakashi grabbed his chin and pulled him back for another kiss. "It was nothing." He murmured into Iruka's lips. "Ignore it."

His lover pulled away from him and swatted away the hand that was unzipping his chuunin vest. "Kakashi, we can't! There's someone at the window." Iruka hissed.

"There's no one there." Kakashi assured him, making a grab for the vest zipper once more.

"Esteemed Rival, you've returned!!!!!!!!" A voice shouted, shaking the building with its ear-shattering decibels.

With a falling heart, Kakashi listened to the sound of the window sliding up. A green spandex covered arm slid through the blinds. 'Maybe 'Ruka and I could make a run for it.' He thought illogically. Iruka shoved him off the desk and straightened his vest as Gai popped into the room.

"I've come to challenge you, Oh Eternal Rival!! And as it is my turn to decide our task, I declare we will compete in the Delicate Art of Calligraphy- while balancing on our heads!!" Gai struck a pose, and his teeth sparkled unnaturally. Kakashi was sure there was some sort of illusionary jutsu to Gai's sparkles and sunsets, but he'd never been able to catch any proof with his sharingan.

The Copy Nin stayed silent for a moment, and only greeted his rival with an indifferent 'Yo' when the other man began to squirm with impatience, just because he knew Gai hated it. "I'm busy right now, Gai." He told the self-proclaimed Beautiful Beast firmly. "I've got people to do right now." He made a vague gesture in Iruka's direction.

"Kakashi!" Iruka hissed in his 'scandalized teacher' voice. Oh, right. The chuunin was still shy about their relationship, and turned a strange shade of red whenever Kakashi made any reference to sex in public. Red Iruka…sex in public… Kakashi tuned Gai out and concentrated instead on the newly formed Iruka-fantasy number five.

"I just thought that you'd be eager to Compete in a Trial of Youthful Exuberance, now that you are officially behind in the score, Oh Genius Rival!"

'Mmmhh…Iruk- huh?' Kakashi startled out of his thoughts. "WHAT? I'm not losing! We're tied right now, 522 wins each!" There was no way Kakashi was going to let Gai get away with such blatant cheating.

Kakashi hopped off of Iruka's desk, sending papers whizzing off into the air, and stalked up to the smiling and sparkling jounin. Somewhere in the background of his mind, Iruka groaned, and Kakashi could almost hear him rolling his eyes.

"Since you forfeited our Epic Horseshoe Battle, My Brave and Noble Comrade, I gained the extra point needed to pull ahead in our Eternal Struggle!" The green man flashed Kakashi a victory sign, and wiggled around in his usual manner.

"But…that's not…you can't…" Kakashi stuttered. He couldn't deny it, though. But the mere thought of Gai winning in their contest, it was like dropping an anvil on his head.

Suddenly, though, Iruka coughed to get his attention, probably to excuse himself to go work his shift in the mission room, and a beam of light broke through the metaphoric clouds in Kakashi's sky.

"Yes, but I won the Iruka challenge, so we're still tied!" He shouted triumphantly. Ever the Copy Nin, he mimicked Gai's victory pose, before remembering Iruka was in the room. He tried to cover his action by pretending he was just scratching his head, but Iruka gave him an eyebrow raise that said quite clearly that he'd been caught red handed.

"And what 'Iruka-challenge' would that be, pray tell?" His lover asked, setting down the papers he'd just gathered.

Kakashi looked back and forth between his boyfriend and his rival. "I was trying to figure out if you were dating anyone, Iruka, because we were trying to find the single nin in the village, and Gai said you were single-" Kakashi rambled.

"Breathe, Kakashi." Iruka ordered. The Copy Nin took a breath and continued.

"But I said you _must_ be dating someone, because I knew you were much too hot to be alone, and I was right, because you're with me!" He reasoned happily. He was dating Iruka, tied with Gai, and all was right with the world.

"Ah, but there is a flaw in your Energetic Logic, Hip and Modern Rival!" Gai boomed. Kakashi wondered if the man would quiet down if he tossed a kunai at his vocal cords. "Unless, of course, Iruka was dating someone directly before you, and you, My Rival, are much too Noble and Kind to steal someone's Love Interest."

"Of course Iruka wasn't dating anyone before me." Kakashi said, grabbing Iruka and hugging him possessively. Iruka glared, and Kakashi realized that his lover might not appreciate that he'd been wagering on his love-life. It looked like he'd have to deal with an angry sensei later.

"In that case, the score is now 524 to 522, in my favor." Gai smirked. Underneath his mask, the jounin's jaw dropped. Gai explained, "the wager was that Your Beloved Sensei was single at that time, not three months later. That puts you in my debt, Kakashi."

Kakashi stood there, stunned silent. Iruka wiggled out of his grasps and gave him a quick kiss on his masked cheek. "You'll be explaining this all to me after work, Kakashi." He stated, and left for the Mission Room.

"Well, I guess if you're too busy to compete, Eternal Rival, we could just leave the score as it is and tell everyone that I finally bested the Man of a Thousand Jutsu." Gai said slyly (or as slyly as one can when a cheesy sunset follows one around for dramatic effect…)

"Where's the calligraphy set?" Kakashi growled, flipping upside down onto his silver head.

KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI

A few hours later, when his Eternally Hip Rival left to join his Adored Instructor of Academy Students, Gai sat down and watched the legitimate sunset from atop the Hokage Monument. There score was now a more acceptable 524 to 523, and Gai actually preferred it that way. When he got too far ahead, he didn't have as much motivation to push himself toward improvement.

Seeing his sparring partner and good friend running off like a love-sick puppy to meet up with his lover was a little thought provoking for Gai, though. He was happy for his friend, who had been aloof for far too long, and he was glad to know whatever unspoken ghosts of Iruka's past had been eradicated. It was just, now that Kakashi had surrendered to the bliss of Romantic Companionship, Gai really was the only ninja he knew that was single. It was a lonely thought.

The green spandex clad Beast of Konoha stood up and faced the setting sun. He struck up his most serious 'Nice Guy' pose and let Manly tears well up in his flame-filled eyes. "I swear that I will find a date as well, by this time next week, or else I'll polish this entire Monument using only my elbows!" He yelled to the painted sky.

KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI KxI

Below, on a secluded street, Kakashi and Iruka broke apart from their shared embrace and looked toward the mountains.

"Did you hear something?" Iruka asked hesitantly.

"No." Kakashi said, much too quickly to be the truth. "Now come on, I have a mission in the morning, and I'll be in danger if I don't work out some of these Iruka-fantasies before then."

"You're still as much of a pervert as always." Iruka muttered to himself. "Sometimes I wonder why I bother with this cure." Kakashi ignored his rant and nuzzled up close to his ear to start whispering his ideas to the chuunin.

'He's a pervert, but you know you wouldn't have him any other way.' A quiet portion of Iruka's mind reminded him.

'I know.' He thought back, and leaned back into Kakashi's arms, never more thankful than at that moment that no curse in Konoha was strong enough to keep his perverted silver-haired jounin away from him.

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Teh end! Thanks for reading, everyone!


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